You can literally buy ring for boss soul that does that lol But you know what the game is still trash ds3 is flawless excpet its trash thats all i can say
The first time I played Dark souls 2, I fucking hated it, after 1, the movement felt wrong, janky, and weirdly light. I beat it, ignored the dlcs, and hated myself for it for a good month. Then I played it again, did everything (that I could remember to) and loved every second of it. That moment when the game clicked for me started my favorite souls experience in the series. I hold the opinion that Bloodborne is the best souls game, but Dark souls 2 is my favorite. And then I started up 3... I still haven't managed to push myself very far after the Abyss Watchers. The movement and weapons feel good, but the enemies just feel too fast for what the game is. It feels like I'd have to poke them with a 5 meter stick just to not get slapped the moment I'm in range.
the lack of poise, the need of having to teleport to the worst hub in the series just to level up and do whatever you have to do (ds2's majula is better) clay textures, everything looks the same, not a single good area in the game btw. worst online in the trilogy. but hey at least the game has pretty good bosses
i used reshade to get rid of the ash filter over the whole game and i gotta say, DS3 has some really great colors hidden under all that crap. someone once saw i did that and said "that's not their vision" and i said "i have almost no respect for that vision" also shoutouts for pointing out all the mistakes people attribute to DS2 that are in DS3. people love to say DS2 has a fatal flaw and then name something that happens in every souls game
I feel the EXACT same way, DS2 was so nice and vibrant while DS3 was so grey-ish that every area felt like the same place, even when I know logically that they're unique. I think this is a Bloodborne ripoff problem where Bloodborne had a medieval ashy gothic-Victorian aesthetic that worked around into, while DS3 just slapped it on without thought.
Yes, also notice a pattern how every area in the game thats amazing, beautiful, fun to play and does not bore you to death... (Archdragon peak, irythill, anor londo, ashes of ariandel in a whole) IS NOT GREY AND LIFELESS! I love dark souls 3 but everytime i boot it up to replay, ng, i think: "I have to go through that boring ass area again like undead settlement and farron keep" gameplay wise it kinda disappoints
@@scaevities DS3's whole theme and idea is that the world itself is tired and worn out from continuously linking the flame (it's arguably been that way since 1), so it looking grey and lifeless works in that way
I genuinely tried to love DS3. I put over 40hrs into it in my first play through (I didn’t even play the DLC) and the entire time I struggled to keep interest. The world/its lore, characters, and scenery never captivated me like DeS, DS1, DS2, and now recently Sekiro. To me at least, DS3 lacks the “IT” the others have. I hopped on everyday not looking forward to playing but desperately hoping I’d finish it so I could be done. My only goal in playing was to say I beat the main game nothing else. In comparison: DS2 had me checking every corner, nook and cranny for lore , npcs, and hidden loot. I was reading nearly all the item descriptions and exhausting all dialogue with every character. All the while I’d spend HOURS just sitting and enjoying the atmosphere that is DS2 (don’t even get me started on the beauty that is the Ivory kingdom). Every time I hopped on I was always excited to see what i was going to discover next. DS1 had me completing quest lines for characters I didn’t even find interesting cause I wanted to know more about the first flame and it’s impacts on humanity. DeS had me looking forward to each arch stone (excluding the shit show that is Valley of Defilement). For me at least, I loved seeing the story come together through seeing how each world has withered away because humanity once again became tempted by the souls of Demons. Sekiro has me enthralled with the beautiful story telling and combat. For the first time since I began my Souls journey with DS2 I find my masochistic side enjoying the seemingly Sisyphus level challenge of learning exactly how/when to deflect and Mikiri counter. None of the things I loved from each of these experiences has shown itself to me in DS3. Which is why it’s the only Soulsborne game I uninstalled immediately after the credits finished rolling.
that's so weird to hear because ds3 is easily the most replayable souls game to me. i find myself blasting through the first third because the bosses afterwards are almost all bangers. pontiff, nameless, dancer, dragonslayer armor, twin princes, friede, gael, midir, demon in pain... i like them all a whole lot.
I love my man Miya, he made some of my fav games of all time, but if i had some millons to spare i'd love to make an experiment: make two games and let him direct one but tell the public that he made the other. I'm sure the reaction and critique of the fandom would be amazing
I think some people just like ds3 because he made it and hate on ds2 because he didn’t but by liking games just because he make them overlooks what made them good what makes the games he makes good he’s good at what he does and all games he’s made are peak but people overlook and downplay what he does best and what make his game’s special, if you get what I mean?
Thank you for having my opinion. But actually though, I've never heard anyone acknowledge how 3 gets a free pass on all the stuff 2 got torn apart for. I don't particularly like 2 either, I just don't get how someone can hate 2 yet love 3. I retroactively feel like 2 had a lot of love put into it compared to 3 which has always felt utterly soulless.
You don’t get how someone can dislike 2 but not 3? They play completely differently… how could you miss something so simple? Your last sentence is just made up nonsense
@@ExpertContrarianI don't remember what was in this video but "how it plays" wasn't why people hated 2. Most of the criticisms in the matthewmatosis dark souls 2 critique video also apply to 3. That's not a defense of 2 either, I pretty much only like ds1
@@kleptomanta my reply has nothing to do with what’s in the video. Only what’s in your comment. You’re confused how people could criticize dark souls two and three differently.
@@ExpertContrarian I think you misinterpreted it. I wasn't confused that anybody could possibly dislike 2 and like 3. It was about people who said 2 sucks for specific reasons that weren't fixed in 3 but suddenly those reasons aren't even worth mentioning because 3 rocks.
@@kleptomanta oh, so you’re confused by a strawman you created in your head. The specific reasons people list for not liking DS3 are not problems in DS3.
When DS2 came out, people suffered many mobs coming at once because of its clunky control and disliked it. When DS3 came out, people learned how to deal with many mobs at once because of its fast pace and the broken straight sword. Meanwhile, I quickly realized that the mobs of DS3 don't chase you hard, so you could ignore all of them with spamming rolls, also the levels were too linear and no contraption, so spamming rolls always brought me to the next bonfire or a shortcut almost every level has. The whole levels in DS3 were pointless, but people didn't care because the bosses were fancy. I only agreed the boss section in this video. They were too repetitive.
2 does not chase... like they just dont.. its less annoying the only problem with ds3 is level design even though it makes sense lore wise and all that every single area of the game is grey, dead, no life to it, plain. early game sucks... game picks up at/after watchers pvp is amazing linear does not mean bad, its just that more people were used to the interconnected world of ds1 with less bonfires and more shortcuts and how you could play however you wanted to. its more subjecive, but the bonfire placement is every other second like you said, making it stupid easy. its also the least clunky game, its not super slow like one and the combat is just better in every way. the world and level design fuck it up ost,bosses,pvp the best out of all the others. people go crazy for the game, without bosses its just... not it. I love it but without the dlc and the great bosses it would easily be the worst soulsgame i think ds2 is super underrated and ds3 is overrated however my list stays the same for the trilogy: 1,3,2 it will always be better than 2 imo
ds2 vanilla had none of the aggresive as shit immaculate combos and roll catching on speed that ds2 sotfs. i put like 1000 hours into ds2 vanilla and sotfs im currently at like 100, it's so so different and MUCH more punishing if playing solo. honestly i don't care if anyone believes me, this was my favorite game for years. maybe it's because the game runs at 60fps in sotfs, idk... it's just HARD as FUCK to solo this game now, and if you think i suck, please, just stop right there. sure im not in my 20's anymore im a bit slower, but i am surely not bad at this game.
@@blargblarg-jargon9607 Yep. The only advantage Sotfs gets is you dont have to buy all dlc separately. Vanilla is just the better version of the game but the minor flaws are: its still 32 bit based a little worse graphics(not even a con for me) and dlc not included unlike sotfs sotfs terrible enemy placement and it just isnt the best ds2 experience... if you dont look forward to the online play that much i dont see how sotfs is better than vanilla+season pass
The amount of cut content from this game slightly annoyed me, they had such an interesting premise at first. The released version feels neither as a proper original sequel nor a cool mashups of all things cool about the series but more like an uninterested and half harted mixture of stuff that people like to talk about online regarding these games
I think when a lot of people where dissapointed by DS2, they thought DS3 is back to the roots (done by Miyazaki, etc, etc..) but their arguments didn't make sense. Everybody was arguing how DS2 was linear, but praised DS3 for breaking away from this. So far I had played DS1 and DS2, so I went to DS3 as everyone was telling me it's the best of the series. And I got bored, I lost interest. I played through half of it and something didn't attract me back. First, it's more linear than DS2. At least in DS2 when you start, you can take 3-4 alternative paths if you want, you can play the game in different ways, even if the overall world isn't interconnected as a whole. But isn't that worse in DS3 where it's a linear path to boss, then some hub, then some castle area, then some boring swamp area, but there are no alternative paths unless much later. Not only DS3 is forcibly linear but most of the areas are so bland and generic, I have no memories of them since the last time I played. I will try to replay it with a new build next time, so let's see. So, yeah I totally agree, I remember the videos "why DS2 is bad and why DS3 is the best thing since sliced bread" and couldn't make a sense out of them when I started playing DS3. It's the only FromSoft game I didn't finish yet, normally when I start a game I am so sucked into it's world and exploring, that I continue playing. It's good hear my exact thoughts of why somehow DS3 didn't catch up. And the constant spamming of enemy/boss combo attacks? That's the other one I can't get into. This is gone since BloodBorne and into Elden Ring. I play ER and the only way to do better is to put everything into Vigor and use Spirit Ashes. Else I don't understand how to find a window of opportunity to attack back besides rolling all the time and still sometimes getting hit. I think in the modern era they want to make these games like spectacle fighting but also with the added unfairness. I agree DS1 and even DS2 had slower more strategic battles that you could manage. The new games play quite different, maybe I should get used to it. But yeah I don't understand the hate for DS2, even if I know it's many flaws, when the same issues are overlooked in DS3.
Funnily enough, after playing Sekiro and Elden Ring, is really hard to come back to this game because of the rollspaming nature of it. Add to that the gank structure of the first half, the weaker and limited magic system, and how much you have to do to craft a build that isn't a straight sword melee focused character, and you have a great, yet flawed game to boot. Also, the DLC ganks, Gravetender and Halflight, are absolutely terrible.
@@A.H.goose1 I can see why, the gameplay is smoother than any other Souls. I just feel like the level design and some enemy encounters at the beginning could've been more interesting. I would say Sekiro and Bloodborne are a bit more repayable for me, but I can see why many would prefer DS3 over any other.
My issue with 3 is that it has no...... soul (hehehehehe), what i mean by that is that it has no identity to call its own. It's like they decided to create a Michael Bay/theme park version of the series: "what do people like about dark souls? Oh i know epic boss fights with orchestral music every 2 seconds, subtle and unsettling atmosphere like that of Fools Idol be damned! And Bloodbornes combat so let's mix create an ugly bastard child of the two, hey let's not forget people love Vaatys videos so we must make Lore as obscure and criptic as humanly possible, after all fans don't actually enjoy discovering the story..... What about the fanservice? Of course we'll make it with as much bad taste as we can, i mean people liked Artorias so we'll make an area that has nothing to do with the rest of the game so we can put their cosplayers there".
oh my god i just wrote a comment that sounds suspiciously like it ripped yours off! i'll edit mine now to reflect that (so embarrassing, and yet also heartwarming)...
@gitnjur Technically it’s a middevsal fantasy game and has a lot of knights so if you want to be specific it is about middeval knights, or some of it is lol.
As someone who loved playing through DS3 I was curious what your take on it was, then it made sense because I am a dodge maniac, so the game felt really natural for me. To be fair though I also love dark souls 2, despite thinking its slightly less good than 1 and 3. I do absolutely agree that in 3 I miss the interconnectedness. Lies of P is refreshing for this reason.
Only reason I even replay to this cuz I just finished lies of P and tbh for me best soul like story of them all . I love DS3 and it's easily best game in series 2nd only to Bloodborne. Sekiro I don't count cuz not rly souls like but it's their best game they ever made.
I'm very conflicted now. Your Lies of P video on how it ruined Souls for you had a lot of really interesting critiques and analysis on gameplay and the structure of these games, and then I sought out this video to see why you could possibly hate what was, to me and many out there, the most polished of the Souls Trilogy. Firstly: I agree on the level design being fairly linear. There's a few branching paths but otherwise it's like following trails to the ends of their roads. My own critique on the game was that I always felt that the game's poise stat was never really given any room to shine. If you're a full on havel monster then you get some poise, but otherwise it's practically nonexistent and that always annoyed me. I can kinda give you the "Dodging feels more necessary in DS3" point.. kinda, but for me it was because with how fast it was that I knew I'd have to dodge. In DS1 and DS2, I am able to parry almost every parry-able move VERY consistently, because I see it all coming from a mile away. That's why bosses have these "Fake-out" attacks, it's to switch up on how hyper-telegraphed EVERY MOVE in DS1 DS2, and DeS are. In a faster game, I have a shorter window to time, and it's safer to skedadle than to stand my ground. For me, I much prefer the faster combat style, and enemies switching it up on me just means I need to be more patient and wait for the swing not for the prelude animation. I feel the bosses in 3 are... just like the bosses in 1? Varying unique bosses with different gimmicks? Wyvern, Yhorm, Great Wyvern, Deacons, Wolnir, Sage, Abyss Watchers Phase 1, Princes 2nd Phase. All of those guys have unique boss mechanics. Not to mention Old Demon King and Demon Princes both have stage hazard lava moves just like Quelag. Here's the thing, from what I've found, the Souls game you start on dictates your souls taste forevermore. I have a buddy who's played since 1, and he cherishes the game. Loves it to death, and to him, DS3 was not as good. I played DS3 first, and going backwards to DS1 and DS2 I felt like I was swimming in tree sap the whole time. It felt horribly clunky and slow, so much so that I even have a mod to make the entire game like 25% faster, but that of course only fucks with animations and still feels off. Aesthetic is purely opinion based, so on that alone I shouldn't discuss our differing opinions, but I wanna anyway. DS1 and 2 look incredible in several spots, and have more vibrant and beautiful colors... but DS3 is this universe at the end of it's rope. Just before the great end. The fire is going out and the cycle is dying. The world looks bleak because it is bleak... and even then first getting to Irithyll for the first time, wandering down into the Smouldering Lake, venturing across the ringed city, etcetera, these are all fantastic and beautiful too. Those views are incredible and beautiful and sometimes sorrowful and empty and that's worldbuilding. Gaze upon this sad dying world and despair for how much more beautiful it could be and was... for the fire is dying out and this world will too if you do not reignite the spark ashen one! Or something like that. I dunno, I know I won't change your mind, but I suppose I just wanted to defend a few of the points you made. Souls 3 will always hold a special place in my heart as the game that introduced me to what is now my favorite franchise/genre of games, though it's not my favorite Soulslike. (Elden Ring baybeeeee!)
I definitely don't disagree that this video isn't one of my best. I make a few flimsy arguments throughout it. I stand by my overall opinion in this video but I don't stand by this video if that makes sense lol
DS2 deserves so much more love than it got. Matter of fact, enough years have passed, now people are starting to admit it. The wave of DS2 videos popping up in my feed proves it for me. Dog piling, content farming gatekeepers gonna hate. Maybe give the game another chance? Forget about what your favorite TH-camr said 10 years ago. You might just have some fun.
I'm only two and a half minutes in, but the thing I hear people say that they love about this game is the PVP and boss. Personally, DS3 is my least favorite of the lot too, and I've been considering giving it a second playthrough to see if I'll have a better time with it or not. In any case, I still feel like Elden Ring is DS3 but actually good instead of frustrating.
@@Sputnik34 Same, I'll have to finish the video later but a big problem I felt was that the bosses were too fast while your character was too slow on top of armor being virtually pointless which matched poorly with constantly trading blows with melee which eventually made me hard commit to pyromancy
@@Sputnik34 "a lot to say about the bosses" brother, all you did was bitch about attack patterns, about delaying in animations, the game being fast and then just calling them bad, which are things that both ELDEN RING ANF BLOODBORNE do, Elden Ring cranking it up so much to a point it's actually detrimental and Bloodborne doing it no more than Ds3 does if not slightly more. Not only did you barelly say shit about the bosses, when you did you were as reductionist as possible and bitching about stuff in a vaccum while just briefly saying "but it's ok when Bloodborne does it. i came to the video expecting to see your reasons as to why you dont like the game since the title implies it's your "least favorite" which i completly respect, but what i was met was "this game sucks and it's bad" which is a completly different statement altogether and i had to pause multiple times just to grasp how full of shit you were in some segments let alone in the totality of the video
they basically mixed it with bloodborne in the worst way. the bosses and enemies especially. thankfully elden ring feels more like a true souls game lmao
Yeah I have been loving Elden Ring so far. I feel like they balanced out the combat to feel so much more balanced and interesting. The combat variety and weapon arts are incredibly more game changing than just making the combat faster
i started ds3 few days ago but stopped playing it. i was wondering why im not having as much fun with it as with 1 or 2. Your points make perfect sense, i agree with all of them.
@@anomitas ds2 bosses are the definition of quantity over quality they have the most bosses in the trilogy and 90% of them suck with ds3 every single boss is great apart from one or two its not tase, objectively and going with A lot of peoples opinions DS3 Bosses> DS3 bosses you see that from every game critic you can always have your own opinion but to say one does not have a taste is wrong lol
@@sgorgardr227 Yes! You can actually parry and shield some of the bosses and its actually effective! They make rolling actually fun, I assume you've never played dark souls 3 or gotten past crystal sage The good souls is not in the earlygame, do play further you will retract your statement :)
Based. You're the first person I've ever heard say DS2 is better than DS3 and when I think about it you are absolutly right. The DS2 lore is better and more connected to DS1 than the superficial DS3 references to DS1. DS3 didn't have dual wielding/powerstancing. DS3 should be renamed to Linear Souls 3 for how much of a straight line it is. They took away interesting things like the spice mechanic, bonfire asetic, armours with special abilities or stat bonuses, durability and poise are almost non existant, can't pop souls from the item menu without it kicking you out(you can partially achive it by cutting the detailed descriptions but you are losing info that way). Features that were actually fun and helpful.
Best combat system and difficulty, only game that dont dip in quality. DS1 first half best game ever 2nd half is reason I don't wanna play it to end. DS2 almost full of bad bosses and cheap gang fights and let's not forget probably one of worst boss runs in all games . DS3 is consistent and have by far best bosses except Bloodborne. Lore wise I can't say and 99% of fanbase can't .
@@hanilfsat8820I never get ganged up on in DS2. Thats all I get in DS3. Which boss run is the worst? Black Gulch? That's only bad if youre stubborn and try to run through it without dealing with the statues. It's really short. Also there is a bonfire 5 feet from that boss.
@@hanilfsat8820 Allant is the king in Demon's Souls. Sir Alonne, maybe? I'll grant you that runbis a little annoying, but at least DS2 doesnt have ever-repawning enemies. That mechanic is useful at times
I think part of the reason that people didn't complain as much in Ds3 as DS2 as that they were aleady desensitized to certain changes such as the lack of an interconnected world and the enemy groups. In my view, a better comparison between annoying stats would be between ADP and Vitality in ds3. Vitality was so much worse in DS3 needing something like 27 or so points if you wanted to do a heavy armor character, ADP by contrast you really only needed like 20 points in and also you level up the quickest in any souls game. I like the video, I felt like the arguments could have been better organized but I think it's good especially as DS3 is such an overrated game in the souls series
Yeah it's definitely not my strongest arguments but I still stand by the points. I actually finally beat blood recently for the first time and playing through that game only made my opinion on DS3 even worse. It's like they NAILED this much faster pace in BB and then DS3 drops the ball SO HARD
@@Sputnik34 I just beat Bloodborne recently and it is pretty damning how so many cool moments of DS3 like the alternate firelink shrine and giving the eyes to the fire-keeper are just a complete retread of Bloodborne
I personally think Dark Souls 3 is the most taken for granted game in the series. Dark Souls 1 is by far the most overrated, Bloodborne's a masterpiece if we include the dlc, but even that is a little overrated at times. Bloodborne and DS3 are not too far apart in terms of overall quality. But to each their own.
@@HMCarsSOA Yeah I agree that their close in quality but my point was that so many moments are repeated in DS3 from Bloodborne. I disagree that dark souls 1 is overrated, it has its issues but I think its correctly rated as being a masterpiece
@@forcedintofemininity Fair enough, that is a valid critique of DS3. The main problems i have with DS3 are the drab levels and being a little uninspired at times, the starting levels of the game are far inferior compared to DS1 which in contrast hooks you in immediately. But where DS3 shines is its music, combat and boss roster which i personally consider the best in the series. And Irithyll onwards is where the game truly starts to shine, apart from a few stinkers like Ancient Wyvern and Halflight, it's amazing boss fight after amazing boss fight. Elden Ring proved that DS3 is an essential entry in the series especially due to its combat and boss design, it set the foundation for Elden Ring. The reasons i personally couldn't enjoy DS1 as much as much as the post-2015 fromsoft games is mainly due to the second half of the game (apart from the dlc which is perfect) and the overall boss roster (which is the main reason i play these games for). After Anor Londo i'm always thinking "oh no, we have to go through Lost Izalith and Tombs of the Giants again", and then i force myself to trudge through it, it's not the worst gaming experience in the world but still tedious and unfun to get through for me personally. I still enjoy DS1 all things considered, it still has one of my favourite menu themes and has a magical atmosphere unlike any other, if its second half was just as good as the first and it had better bosses, i would place it above DS3.
Idk if you'll ever see this, but i came from your Lies of P video and was curious how DS2 was your 3rd favourite FromSoft Game, while DS3 was your least favourite. I watched both of your videos now on those 2 games respectively, but i don't really agree with you, and that's fine. You see, i knew nothing of the Souls series when i started and just wanted to play DS3, bc it looked cool. When i then started DS3 back in 2017, i hated it for it's difficulty, which i only grew to understand and love after i killed the Soul of Cinder. After having over 1200 hours in this game now, the only point i can fully agree on was the world and it pretty much being a straight line with like 2-3 stray paths. This is what i was so surprised by, when i played DS1 after. I'm still to this day impressed on how almost effortlessly the whole world connects in itself and that is what made me love DS1. Of course, the boss and enemy quality where nothing in comparison to DS3 bosses, at least in my opinion, i had a lot of fun with the combat. After having now finished 2/3 games, it was time for DS2 and up until this day, i hate it with every fiber of my being. I only played through it a total of 3 times. One was the first playthrough, the second one was a playthrough where i wanted to give the game another chance, but it sadly didn't work, and the third was after Elden Ring, bc it looked weird to not have all the Souls games with a Platinum Trophy, so i completed it and instantly quit the game and deinstalled it after the Platinum trophy was unlocked. This game just feels unfair to me at so many points, i just hate to think of going through it again. But i can still appreciate that DS2 at least tried to be experimental with it's approach and it does look very good in quite a few areas. Will i still give it another chance at some point? Probably. I won't lose hope that i might find the fun in DS2 eventually, but it will most likely forever remain my least favourite Souls game. With that said, some might argue that i only love DS3 more than the other 2, bc it was my first Souls game, but it really isn't. My ranking of those games would be: 1. Elden Ring (the variety of runs and the world just hits me on a different level) 2.Bloodborne (only complaints are that the main game feels really short and it's not playable in 60fps even on PS5) 3. Sekiro (The combat is just so satisfying to master) 4. Dark Souls 3 5. Dark Souls 1 6. Demon's Souls 7. Dark Souls 2 But i'm glad that people have different opinions on games. Even if i might question them or don't understand them, it feels refreshing to see or hear different views and opinions from time to time. With that said, whoever reads this, i hope you have a fun time with whatever game you are playing now and i wish you a nice day
@@Sputnik34 Ey no problem. And i should thank you for the Lies of P video too. Wasn't sure if i'm gonna try it out, but your video on it made me quite interested, so i'll probably get it in like a week or 2. Really liked it!
@@asdergold1 I don't know if you're refering to DS2 and/or Lies of P in all 3 sentences, so i'll talk about both. As for DS2, it was the Greatsword and i loved to use it. Without it, i might have not even finished DS2. Later i also used this toxic katana from Shrine of Amana (i think it was from there) in my off-hand and later switched between Greatsword and Fume Knights Greatsword. The fashion i created with all three weapons was outstanding ngl. Have to give DS2 that. I had no problem with the weapon movesets however and played it slow actually. The enemy spam in SotFS at least was what made me do it instinctively and was the main problem i had all the time. Also, i'm actually not that big of a twinblade fan. Neither DS2, nor Elden Ring. They both feel weird, although Elden Ring twinblades feel worse imo. As for Lies of P, i used the Ark sword or whatever it was called, one of the early boss weapons you can create. The one that is a normal silver greatsword, but can transform into a lance and gives a stamina recovery boost. Such a good weapon, my god. Loved it
My experience was kind of the opposite. I started with the faster paced Soulsborne games like DS3 and Bloodborne and they soon became my favourite games, had a blast with DS1 although it didn't capture the same feeling I had for the previous 2 games, and got to DS2 whilst still liking it found it really tedious and annoying, and I still do despite platinuming the game. I found a lot of your critisms really... odd to say the least, especially stuff like the boss phases one. .Your point about ganks being in DS3 I both agree with and disagree with. It technically does throw groups at you, but whenever it did the enemies were usually really weak and didn't do that much damage with there maybe being one strong enemy amongst them. Encounters with 2 or 3 STRONG enemies were super rare. And even then you'd sometimes be given a way to escape/avoid the encounter like cutting down the bridge before Wolnir to avoid the skeleton horde, or an enemies aoe attack killing the others anyway like the enemies with the pus of man. Whereas in some of DS2's areas, the ganks will usually consist of the same mid/high level enemy like the Alonne Knights in Iron Keep and Sir Alonne's runback, or the area in Dranleic Castle with a bunch of Ruin Sentinel's. .A point I think could have been brung up, and a problem many people, around the topic of ganks have is the aggro range in DS2. Enemies in DS2 have a super high aggro range meaning any attempt to back off for some breathing room usually ends up with a squad of enemies that just keep chasing you down until usually you leave the area completely making the ganks more annoying. It's more difficult to ease off and try to separate the enemies once they clump together in DS2. .I think DS3 gives you enough healing options and the addition of lifegems would moreso hurt DS3 than help. I somewhat blame lifegems for DS2's wobbly and unnatural feeling difficultly curve and, while this is just an unfounded hunch, I believe lifegems were added last second cause DS2's playtesters were having trouble getting through the areas on just estus and rather than rather than re-doing the levels to make them more balanced, they added lifegems instead. Anyway, DS3 actually has a few options to get more health: You can allot your estus and figure out specifically how much hp restore you want in comparison to your fp, you have divine blessings, siegbrau, miracles, items like sun princess ring and ring of the evil eye, and you fill up a hidden meter every time you kill an enemy, and when the meter gets filled you get an extra estus flask.
.Your argument for adp having the same problem as stamina just baffles me. For one, endurance is a core stat, you're going to be leveling it regardless on enemy attacks, character build, etc and likely always consider levelling until you hit a soft cap cause its the thing most of your actions are tied to and dependant on. Whereas the problem many have with adp is it feels like a vital mechanic tied to an arbitrary stat. For example, it'd be like if the speed of your roll in DS1 was tied to your resistance so if you didn't level it you'd fat roll everywhere. You'd have the lingering question of "Why?" in your head as you put points into it. And two, it's just really vague on the description of what agility even does. "Boosts ease of evasion and other actions"... OK. First time I read that I thought it would reduce enemy aggro ranges and the "other actions" bit is just downright stupid. .I just completely disagree on your point on bosses. I'd level the critism of bosses feeling very similar to play against more towards DS2 cause of the oversimplified movesets of the base game bosses. Most humanoid bosses in the base game of DS2 have a small assortment of generic looking slash, thrust, overhead slam attacks with the odd aoe attack on repeat ad nauseam and it took until the dlcs for the movesets to get more interesting. Veldstat's only unique move is him applying his buff. DS3 movesets felt a lot more unique to me. Also, DS3 bosses all feel similar because of the focus on dodging multiple attacks and waiting till you get an opening after to attack back...? That's like saying all of Sekiro's bosses are all the same because of the focus on deflecting and draining the bosses posture to get a death blow. There's obviously a lot more to the bosses that separate them. .It feels like you just omitted the gimmicks within DS3's bosses out of disingenuity. You left out how the third Abyss Watcher instead fights the other two and you have to analyse the best times to engage with the main Watcher while he's likely distracted by the third Watcher, how Pontiff Sulyvahn's clone telegraphs the move/attack Pontiff is about to do, so if you see what the clone does you'll know what Sulyvahn's going to do, how Soul of Cinder has 4 different forms he can swap to each with their own moveset in his 1st phase, how Sister Freide will go invisible and you'll have to use your ears to figure out her location before she can sneak attack you, how in the Twin Princes 2nd phase you need to factor in positioning when dodging and attacking so that you hit Lothric as well as Lorian, you forgot Yhorm the Giant, etc. These can all be classed as gimmicks, especially since you class Capra Demon having a small arena and there being 2 Bell Gargoyles as gimmicks.
.Dancer of the Boreal Valley's entire shtick is she's a DANCER. she's gonna carry her weapons throughout her dance motions as opposed to doing generic DS2 Dragon Rider style attacks. It makes sense for her to delay her attacks. That, and delayed attacks give you something to learn about a boss. Call it boring but I'd say it gives extra layers to the bosses and gives you extra satisfaction when you master the timings. .I seriously don't understand your gripe with boss phases. Its simple, if we're talking about a typical multiple phase boss then the boss gets progressively harder as the fight goes on until they reach their max difficultly at a certain phase, as opposed to the boss just starting the fight at their max difficulty like Artorias or Gwyn does. It's not some lazy attempt to be difficult that the devs have to "resort" to as much as it is just an alternative way to design a boss fight. .How is adding a phase that shakes up the bosses moveset with new attacks or even completely altering the bosses moveset entirely mean the "designers were out of ideas"? THAT'S LITERALLY THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF BEING OUT OF IDEAS! Being out of ideas is either artificially extending a boss's healthbar without adding anything new to the boss or scrapping the extra phase entirely. .DS3's linearity is one of DS3's most harped on about critisms, and it's one of the things I see people rarely give a "pass" on. .OK... but why doesn't it matter? You haven't given any reason as to why it shouldn't matter beyond the fact that it simply didn't bother you. It'd be like saying "DS3's linearity doesn't matter at all, lol. I don't know why people would think its a problem."
.Whilst I agree on DS2 having the best art direction and colour palette, although your comparison seemed a little nit-picky, I think there's a reason for the drab, depressing, grey atmosphere. The whole artificial prolonging of the Age of Fire destroying the world through constant linkings, causing lands to smash and converge, starting to grind together resulting in areas like the Dreg Heap and the Arena you fight Gael in at the End of the World. I think this gives reason for its dead feeling world, compared to some of DS2's more vibrant areas, but I still understand why someone might have an issue with it. I disagree with your playstyle point just off of personal experience. I understand the whole "r1 is the most optimal attack" critism, but in terms of DS3 having a specific playstyle it didn't seem so to me. I'd integrate weapon arts into my fights to flatten my enemy and damage them while they were recovering, I'd play super defensively with a Greatshield on another playthrough, r1 spam with sellsword twinblades another. It didn't seem like I was going to "get wrecked" if I didn't play a specific way aside from dodging multiple attacks. I could understand the the game having a favoured build/playstyle, for instance I think DS1 favours tanky poise-boi strength builds, DS2 favours Hexers, and DS3 favours reactive quality and dex builds but nothing that will railroad you into a specific one. .The fact that DS3 has too many bonfires is not something people try to hide about DS3. Literally everyone pokes fun at the fact that the Dragonslayer Armour bonfire and the Grand Archives entance bonfire are so close and how needless some of the ones in DS3 are. .All of the clips of DS3 ganks you show are of super easy to kill, skinny, mobs. .Going back to a hub area to level up is also a critism regularly levelled at DS3. The only odd positive I've heard about DS3 compared to DS2's level up lady is her dialogue is shorter and quicker to skip. .I'd say it's more specifically a premise that many believe Iframes should remain a fixed value and that it should be something to learn the timings of much like a learned skill rather than something that can be varied through levelling your agility.
.20:45 Why are you constantly dodging Dancer when you're not near? You're quite clearly out of her attack range and are just waisting stamina. Also, this worked for me a few times, you can time your Iframes to dodge through her beyblade attack and she'll spend the rest of her time trying to turn around to get you meaning she wastes her attack and you get to keep most of your stamina. Rolling doesn't use up all that much stamina so you don't actually have to "dump" it with as many levels as you think. That, and your complaint about delayed attacks actually works in favour here cause the boss inadvertently gives you time to recharge your stamina, well provided your not constantly mashing the dodge button. You don't really give a much of a reason to why DS3's bosses are "awful" beyond they have longer combos, they're not gimmicky enough even though Capra Demon somehow is, and they have multiple phases.
i meant to be honest your points are all valid critiques of my critiques but i've beaten this game 3 times now for the simple reason of making sure that i have something to actually stand behind when i talk about this game on the internet and people who are FromSoftware die hards. i stand by my points and actually after having finally beaten bloodborne recently, i think my opinion of DS3 is lower than it's ever been. Bloodborne is DS3 done right. FromSoft literally just took the bloodborne aggression and slapped it onto a game that didn't work fully with that style. it's one of the most baffling games i've ever played.
Opposite happened to me. Ds3 was my first dark souls game and i played the hell out of it. I loved it so much that I beat every optional boss including the dlc. After that, I decided I would try dark souls remastered, but when I got into it I just didn't like it. The story and the interconnectedness is amazing but combat just felt too slow to me especially after I played dark souls 3. I quit playing after I reached blighttown. Maybe someday I'll try to beat it again
I felt the same way. After putting about 150 hours in ds3 I went to dsr and hated it for most of my first playthrough. It really grew on me though and I'd def vouch for a second try :3
Finally someone talks about the gank squads and the exaggeratedly quick enemies! I must admit that my opinion of the game has improved over the years( i'd say it's objectively better than 2, instead me liking the latter more), but at the end of the day i agree with the take of Demodcracy: Dark Souls 1 didn't need sequels, in spite of me not caring for Sekiro i believe that Miyazaki is at his best when doing new stuff (Demon's,Bloodborne,i hope Elden ring)
lol, thank god they did not think like you. Ds1 is just so poor in comparison with 2 or 3 imo. But i guess the first love nostalgia is overshadowing everything. Cause i was not there and started with DS2 and i could never even nearly understand why so much people love the first. Imo its just dogshit. He rages about having to pump stamina.. i mean in the first you must have an absurd amount of weight, cause you better be below 30% or you gonna fatroll.. like wtf is this shit. Or you just play naked.......
Alrighty, I'm back. So, I agree completely about the linearity of DS3. It's pretty much a straight line with like two or three offshoots that go into an immediate dead end and you have to go into them to get the key to continue down the line to Aldritch where the yellow brick road abruptly ends. Like, it was weird to me that one of the Lords of Cinder is just...sorta in the way. Not some epic boss you build up to through a long arduous journey, but one you just have blocking your way to the others despite being one of the four Lords you have to hunt down. I don't remember Stamina management being that much of an issue for me personally, but it's also been a couple years so I could be mis-remembering. The biggest issue I had with one of the core features of the game was armor and how much damage bosses do. When I was fighting the last boss of them all for me (The Nameless king as I found him last), I was getting the floor wiped with me despite me having like 70 vigor and some pretty decent armor. So I got fed up and power-leveled endurance until I could wear Havel's armor. And all that extra defence amounted to....nothing. I then started getting scientific and started testing how damage I take with and without armor. And my results were that armor did just about jack diddly squat. Comparisons were that with one hit the nameless king would bring me down about 75% of my hp naked and 70% armored with full havel. Like, to make sure, it's basically the difference of me being able to heal to full hp with a singular flask swig with armor and being just shy of full without armor, and that's basically my experience with every moment of the game. At no moment in time did I feel like my leveling HP was making me stronger, it was more like an arms race where leveling HP was MANDATORY if I didn't want to be one-shot. And thus everything in the game basically one or two shots you, which also happened in Bloodborne but at least that game was made for it and you don't have armor in it either. Not that I liked it there either. I mentioned in my earlier comment, I felt like attacking with melee in DS3 was just not worth it due to every swing of my sword basically resulted in a trade of blows with whatever I was attacking. I feel like that's due to the excessive speed of enemies vs your slow lumbering speed. It really disappointed me, as there were cool ideas in DS3 I loved but the game itself was just so not fun, just a constantly arduous journey of frustrations that I couldn't really do anything but just either push through or stop playing with, which contrasted with the previous two DS titles where if you were struggling in one area, you had one or two others you could explore and do things in. Ultimately, I feel like Elden Ring took the rough lump of coal that was DS3 and polished it into a brilliant diamond. Literally fixing just about every issue I personally had: Armor actually did something again, the world is so open that if you're ever having trouble you have like 200 (literally) other things you could be doing which will either help you learn how to survive better, equip you better, or just simply let you level up to perform better. The weapon arts were back and better than ever with insane levels of customization, the flask system returned, and the game was gorgeous to gaze upon. Elden Ring isn't perfect, of course. It has its flaws like repeat bosses that show up way too often, but it's a far better experience and is where I'd recommend players wanting to get into souls games to begin at due to its forgiving nature and updated mechanics.
Thank you for making this tremendous constructive critique. I keep returning to watch and consider its topics. To learn from it. 💪 When analyzing the game for myself, I came to similar conclusions. While similar, I did my best to analyze and compare them beyond the simple confirmation bias of agreeing with your video. I've even changed my mind repeatedly while playing all three games. To sum up my own observations in as few points as possible: *Dark Souls 1 & 2, enemies followed the same rules as players:* • They committed to attack animations and directions, could miss, and required timing for their moves. • Victory felt fair and earned because mistakes were usually the player’s fault. *In Dark Souls 3, enemies feel like they “cheat”:* • Perfect tracking lets enemies follow you mid-attack, punishing movement. • They have infinite stamina, chaining combos far longer than the player can. • Randomized delays and fake-outs make learning patterns less rewarding. *The player in DS3 feels more limited:* • You’re locked into animations when attacking, dodging, or healing. • Enemies, by contrast, can cancel, delay, or track you, breaking traditional strategies like circling or baiting. • In Bloodborne, enemies are equally aggressive, but the player is just as fast and fluid, making combat feel balanced. *DS3 often feels unfair because:* • Enemies don’t play by the same rules; victory can feel like luck or cheese rather than skill. • While DS3 is still a great game, it sacrifices fairness for intensity, which can frustrate players who enjoyed the strategic pacing of DS1 and DS2. I would even compare DS1 and DS2 to rhythm games like Crypt of the NecroDancer because of their chess-like strategy and the way you "dance" with enemies. I have been researching gameplay scripting and mechanics of Dark Souls from modders/data miners. I've been combing through the wiki to learn how this well researched game works and plays optimally. While I might be a skill issue, I tried to learn as much as possible from those that already "got gud". Along with listening to critiques and praises of all three games from fans like you, Domo, and many others. As well as deconstructing the game with ChatGPT and my own modest familiarity of game design, trying to study why devs made certain decisions in enemy AI behavior trees, stats, economy, animation, physics, and sound/collision detection; admittedly beyond the scope of this comment for my own personal learning purposes. It does not mean Dark Souls 3 is objectively a bad game. It does not mean people cannot prefer this style of gameplay more. It doesn't even mean people cannot master these new, exciting mechanics! But, I think these simple but observable tweaks make Dark Souls 3 very different from previous iterations gameplay-wise. In that way, it is perfectly valid and understandable if some fans do not like its new style. To disclaimer my personal bias: I hate Dark Souls. I love Bloodporne. I used to dislike playing 1&2 solo and with friends. Never thought to try DS3. Returning to the series solo, I was actually excited to play DS3 during my binge playthrough of all three games, based on all the positive feedback I was reading online. I like Bloodporne because it is faster paced and aggressive. By that logic, I should love DS3, too, but I do not. My character feels less like an extension of myself and more like a vehicle. I feel like I'm playing a MilSim game with clunky controls and item management while the enemies are playing a fluid twitch-reflex game. Challenging but I subjectively don't find that handicap fun. When one party "cheats" in a game, the other party is encouraged to cheat (cheese) or quit. Game Theory and psychology covers topics like these quite well, à la reciprocity principle. To conclude, I humbly agree with past Dark Souls fans' claims that DS1 and DS2 were punishing but fair. I used to disagree, but now I don't. I see it for myself. I have new appreciation for those older titles I used to dislike playing. I like DS3 too but less than DS2 or DS1.
Couldn't agree more! There's something off about this game... Don't know if you're a fan of Tintin books, but playing this game, reminded me of the disappointment I had after reading the final Tintin book written by its only author Herge (just like Miyazaki here), "Tintin and the Picaros". In that story, we find our main character (Tintin) no longer as excited as he was going on adventures in previous books. Instead he's a cynical type now; and the plot? We've already had it in previous adventures. Only this time the "rescue" mission and the political landscape of the story feel devoid of passion or any real sense of urgency. It's like a parody/greatest hits of Tintin. I felt the same way while playing Dark Souls III, in that I no longer cared about the "curse" nor the prophecy I was supposed to fulfill. The only part of the game that still sticks with me was the Untended Graves which felt like SH otherworlds. The plot doesn't do anything for me, the characters neither...the locations? Feel like a retread, and the thing I absolutely hate about DS3, is believe it or not, the "high" graphics...literally every area had me so distracted by its ornate walls or sophisticated visual and fog effects that I failed to see where enemies were and where I had to go. It made me miss visually simpler areas like Sen's Fortress in the original or Undead Parish where the high amount of visual intensity is not there to confuse you. This distraction caused by the visuals includes the boss fights too, where most of the time I couldn't make out what the boss was doing in the animations. interestingly, even though I spent half of Dark Souls II wondering what it's all about, until the plot finally kicked in around the Castle stage, I still find that game more memorable and exciting than DS3. Thanks for another awesome video. Cheers from Iran.
@@Sputnik34 For sure, but it captures the raw emotional reaction of how this game makes you feel...which is like shit. It's an abusive relationship. One keeps going back for more thinking it will get better, but it never does. We convince ourselves it's good. We keep thinking the problem is with us, with ME. But it's not. It's the game.
Dark Souls III has good bosses. That’s it, that’s all I like about the game. The narrative isn’t too terrible either, but the gameplay is not good when compared to the first 2, the world is the worst in the series, and the normal enemies are atrocious. Still love the game though, just my least favorite soulsborne game.
im too lazy to finish the video but i have some counter points. quite a few enemies stagger with a single light attack letting you chain that into another attack or roll which is great for crowd control. also theres a random drop system where killing enemies refills your estus so the healing is not as restricted as you think. you can get 9 or 10 flasks before the abyss watchers too.
I’m one of those that think ds2 is the best souls game. Ds3 is right there with it though. After blood borne and sekiro, ds3 shouldn’t feel fast for you.
"Dark Souls is at its best when its combat is slow, heavy, and deliberate." "A majority of the game's bosses, despite the varied moveset and the diverse nature of the characters themselves, all feel very, very similar to play against." Thank you for saying this. As someone who found DkS3 unappealing, I'm glad that I share this perspective with someone else. I felt that I was going crazy when everyone else around me liked DkS3 but I'm just "meh, i prefer DeS, DkS1, and DkS2 better" about it. Also, to add. The bosses feeling so similar to each other made the entire game a blur to me. I was geniunely surprised when I arrived at the last level because it didn't felt like I was closing on that point. 😂
Glad to see i wasn't the only one who thought 3 was overrated, it does do a lot of things right but also a lot wrong and feels off compared to the other games and 3s ng+ was a massive downgrade from 2s definitely my least favourite as well with my favourites being 1 and Bloodborne which are the best fromsoft has done imo
I know I'm late but as I can agree with the first half of the video about enemy placement you contradict yourself hard at 12:36. You say that bosses in ds3 are worse because you don't need to learn their moveset and gimick to beat them because of spam dodging, however you then proceed to say at 12:36 that the long windup animations are annoying and unfair but if you learnt the moveset of these bosses you would be able to dodge these attacks. You still need to learn the movesets of bosses in this game because thats when they hit you with their gimmicks like the dancers flowing long and super fast attacks or Lorian's teleports or the watchers fire after effects hurting you for rolling to much. After finishing this video, It almost feels as if you took the spam roll and attack that ds3 has and used it as a crutch, to not learn the enemy and boss attacks to kill them faster and more efficiently but almost as if you got lazy and spamed your way through the entire game banging your head against the wall until the boss was dead instead of learning the boss and when the game punishes you for spam rolling you call it unfair and annoying.
yeah this isnt my best video. there are plenty of straw man arguments in it. I do still believe in my overall opinion about the game, but i would remake this video if i could.
Yeah because I 100% agree ds3 inst perfect and I feel your other points about the enemies in the starting areas and the areas not being as good as the other 2 is done very well.@@Sputnik34
i forced myself to beat ds3 a little over a year ago, i dont remember a single thing after the dancer. i wasnt sure if i had beaten the game or not until i checked the achievement i got for the final boss
I just got into this series about six months ago and have been playing through the games. I just completed 3, and Im slightly let down. It just feels different...really hard to explain. DS2 is by far my favorite so far.
I've beaten this game like 3 times and find it incredibly fun but I respect your opinion 👍 Personally getting stuck on bosses as you slowly master the timing of the dodging and when to hit especially on the DLC is just so satisfying to me especially when you finally beat them
So I’m new to From working backwards from Elden Ring and it’s DLC. I just beat all of DS3 with like 27 endurance invested. I used rings that buffed my stamina recovery and one added 5 points but I never felt pressured to level it the whole second half of the game. I just didn’t sprint in battle, complete a combo and then expect to roll after. The flow of DS3 is very “get in, get out” and knowing when to do both reliably. Trying to stay close all the time will burn stamina, turn the game into a roll fest and frustrate you that you don’t have stamina left for attacks. I loved the aggressive/fall back/aggressive/fallback flow of DS3
"the entire experience feels like leftover design scraps from a worn out miyazaki" he says about one of the fairest, most well polished games i will ever play in my life
I appreciate the love for DS2 shown here, but I don't agree with your overall stane on DS3. While I love your contrarian insight, I 'll have you know that I don't level up stamina until the end of the game and not more than a few points. Likewise, I don't level up ADP in DS2 more than a few points either though.
3 is so hard once u go ng4 and above it gets nuts i called it quits in 60hrs, was ng6 by then. That already tells u its a 'run past everything' game. DS1 and Elden Ring are only things staying on my console, 2 is ok but its a loooong game with a zillion enemies u have to defeat and its clunky
This is an extremely small thing but I need to correct you on this The difference between skipping dialogue with the firekeeper in DS2 vs DS3 is that 1. From a video I'm watching DS2 Firekeeper has a lot more dialogue to skip through to level up, DS3 Firekeeper has like 2-3? 2.Firekeeper is cuter and when you do specific emotes Firekeeper does a little twirl. Aka DS3 Firekeeper is based.
I can’t say j agree with a lot of your points but you explained them well and ensured that it doesn’t feel like you are shoving your opinion down our throats like a lot of other critics who I feel have a tendency to think they are right and everyone else is the one who is wrong(I love there channels but tbh Joseph Andersons elden ring video and hbomberguys ds2 vid I find not that good as they state opinionated things with little evidence and just think they are right without really a good point like calling an attack bs while they clearly make a mistake)
Hard agree. At least this content creator shows his perspective and why he feels that way. Joseph Anderson's critique of ER was very uninformed, aimless, bloated and showed lack of understanding of the game's rulesets. Even if OP doesn't like a beloved game, like DS3, it will do a much better job than Joseph ever could.
@@enman009 yeah he admits in the video to not bothering to learn the bosses and blames the gmae for it My issue is when channels that seem well informed act like they are being truthful A lot will think they are correct even when they are factually incorrect because the think the content creator knows more than them Ds3 is my favorite game ever yet I respect this video on it because of how it was made and I cannot say the same for Elden ring with Joseph tbh
@@doolenny9458 Yeah, game criticism isn't as mature as, say, film or music criticism, where there's better articulation of thoughts and isn't just a matter of "x thing is good/bad". But hey, I guess just saying it's an opinion makes it immune to criticism. Yeah, DS3 is a great game, probably the most consistent of the Souls Trilogy, but I appreciate that OP made some understandable points, even if I disagree. The main bosses are certainly enjoyable, but I think Sekiro and Elden Ring base game roster are a work of art.
I don't enjoy being a contrarian so i gave this game a lot of chances and it eventually grew on me, however i still have some big issues with it: -All the schools of magic are useless unless you want to roleplay or make meta builds for pvp. -Poise is as absent as my brain when studying engineering. -Covenant farming is the wooooooooooorrrrrrssssst, specially if you don't want to pay that damned Plus. -Amen to what you said about them gank squads. -Lore is needlessly criptic and the main story premise repeating DS1 to a T is lame AF (as farmingforcovenantitemsoffline). Seeing that Sullhyvan was meant to be the main bad guy makes a lot of sense since the most unique and interesting parts of the story are related to him. -Fanservice is cool on the secret areas, but it damages the flow of the story on the main areas ( Abyss watchers have NOTHING to do with the rest of the world in any shape or form). -A big part of the "challenge" comes from this game having the most restrictive healing mechanics, miracles suck and you have no secondary way to recover HP, something that was present in 1 and 2.
I've beaten this game today and all I have to say is that DS 3 didn't age well, once you press the jump button in Elden Ring you know there's no coming back, now I'm actually scared to replay bloodborne. BTW I agree on most of your points, my main problem with this game is the lore being redundant (if you played DS 1), questline being uninteresting for the most, with the only exception of yuria and anri. No powerstancing, you only have a couple of weapons, it feels like the game forces you to use a shield and the black knight's shield is so broken that you don't even need to roll sometimes. I love to cast in this type of games but it feels so useless in PVE, just equip a big weapon and destroy bosses. IDK about pvp, I never cared honestly. Finally the game isn't optimized at all on pc, i don't have the highest end pc but I can't understand why sometimes I've got 60 fps and sometimes 15 randomly with costant stuttering throughout the game, I tried to mess up with the graphic options but, with the only exception of resolution, nothing changes
Not to be the “skull issue!” guy, but you basically just called the game bad because you had a difficult time playing it because of mechanics, pace, and level design… a game meant to be an overwhelming and difficult one to play.
You quite literally are just saying skill issue because you don't like his criticisms of the game. You're also saying the game is hard for the sake of being hard. That doesn't make the game good, nor does it invalidate his criticism
When enemies don't stagger to a heavy attack but will stagger from spamming R1... It becomes grueling and repetitive. More than half of the game's boss roster sucks balls. it's a very forgiving game too, felt like someone was holding my hand exploring the game's level design.
I've just realized that every path in DS3 is literally a straight line or a big open empty area. There are less than 10 semi-circular or circular paths in that entire game, including the DLC.
I just finished Dark Souls 3 and even tho I respect all of your points I just can't agree with them. I think the only things that you pointed out that I agree is the color pallete and extreme agressiveness of some enemies (those big skeletons with blue capes in the catacombs almost made me cry) I don't think this game is just a dodge festival because you can avoid almost everything if you just stay a little far away from the enemies, because even if this is just as fast as Bloodborne, it is still Dark Souls and should be played like Dark Souls (waiting for your "turn" and stuff like that) Anyways, great video and sorry for the bad english
Are you out of your mind? Stamina had never mattered as little as it did in Dark Souls 3. Rolling takes a fraction of what it used to (you can roll about 8 times in a row without investing a single point into stamina or boosting it with items) and you can dish out more attacks than ever before with the same stamina cost. And if that wasn't enough, the base regen rate is faster than in the other games too, kind of like you had the Chloranthy Ring always on. I only ever level up stamina once I hit soft caps in my primary stats because it's frankly unnecessary, just a minor bonus. While DS3 is my 2nd to least favorite (behind DS2) and I do think it's very overrated, I can't agree with your takes at all.
You didn’t factor in how often the enemies force you to use so much stamina. Those big skeleton enemies are a prime example of it. They just don’t stop swinging at you.
Nah Stamina in DS3 its not as worse as in DS2 but It's still fucked up due to the how much the weapons consume and how much you are forced to roll in the game Its was that retarded that they fixed it in elden ring where the stamina finally feels right
I feel so heard. Dark Souls 3 was soooooooo bad when i first played it, it was the only game where i NEEDED to regularly panic roll, i never panic rolled in DS2. It’s just so boring and linear compared to the rest of the games and i felt insane seeing everyone else praise it
Thanks for defending my beloved DS 2 man,i know there are a lot of people out there loving DS 2,i personally think that DS2 is the best of the franchise,i am a die hard fan of 1 and 2 but i can't seem to get past first few hours of 3 without feeling the need to uninstal and never look back at it,such a horendous game.
Bless this video. I don't agree on everything but some points are so good and I'm glad someone put words into it. One of these points is the devs being fed up with Dark souls during that time. Myazaki doesn't like to make sequels and would rather go on a "new" game (like Dark Souls after Demons' Souls). Even one of the main theme of the game reflect that : "ending things for good". My guess is that the devs tried to please the fans at all cost to finish the "souls", hence the reccuring areas/ characters/ enemies from DaS1 and DaS3 and most of the bosses trying to be Arthorias / Gwenn / Ornstein and Smough (the most liked/popular bosses amongst fans) and ends up being rollfest number 2456. I respect what the devs tried to do, but I missed the grounded combat and bosses of Dark souls 1 or the experiments/risks taken by Demon's Souls and to some extent Dark Souls 2. That said, despite the grey palette, the game looks absolutely stunning . I would rather had a Bloodborne 2 than Dark Souls 3 tho.
@@Sputnik34 No pb dude, we're not alone! Others youtubers like MatthewMattosis or Synthetic Man don't really like Dark Souls 3 and explained why in videos.
I guess coming from ds1, and 2, you’d expect the more interconnected and open world, but I feel like the linearity lets the devs balance the difficulty better. It makes sure that the player reaches each area with adequate levels and skill. I think that quickly rolling through attacks and punishing when possible is also just way more fun and satisfying than the generally slower combat from the earlier games. I am 100% biased because it was my first souls game, and it’s genuinely still my favorite game ever, but I can understand some of the points you make.
I really don't get it you hate on dark souls 3 bosses having multiple phase. It just feel bizarre that the bosses get more moveset and change how that boss work come out as negative rather a positive. Also ds2 easily had the worst area design, not the interconnected map design.
I feel that constantly giving bosses multiple phases is just a lazy way to make the game hard without much effort. I don't mind boss battles having multiple life bars but in DS3 it feels to me like FS werent confident in their own boss battles so in and effort to make sure its still hard they kept piling those kinds of fights on.
@@Sputnik34 I found putting two dog with a boss inside a small arena or making a platformer boss inside a game that is not design to be platformer or making a ancient dragon do so much damage that if make one mistake you died or just straight up reskin a boss fight but there two of them ( example dragon rider, those two piece of shit in reindeer fuckland, two guardian ape) to be more lazy then create a new phase for a boss Let me ask you a question Let say they decide to make ancient dragon from DS2 doing less damage but adding a second phase with new moveset. Would you like the boss more.
@@Sputnik34 I find this statement rather questionable. You realise most 2nd phases have vastly different movesets or AI behaviour? For example Gael, Soul of Cinder, Abyss Watchers, Nameless king, Oceiros, Ludwig, Lawrence, Orphan of Kos, Friede, Father Gascoigne, Sword Saint. Regardless if you like them or not, to say there's not much effort put into them is objectively untrue If every boss behaved the same way and used the same attacks against you the whole fight it would become extremely boring. Having multiple phases spices up the gameplay, tests your ability to adapt to new situations and keeps you on your toes.
and yet he loves lies of p who always had second phase for his boss with no differences between them ,they just deal more damage . he is just incoherent. @@dannyboi5887
@@Sputnik34second fases aren't made to make the bosses harder, they are made because second fases are cool in concept, seriosly second fases are a common thing in alot of games that don't tried to be hard
I havely disagre with the point made about stamina, I beated the game in my first playthrough with only 25 stamina at max, and I never felt that I didn't have enought stamina, I think that you are spaming roll too much and not positioning properly. While in dark souls 2 the beginning of the game feels like shit because of the lack of adaptability, the roll doesn't work and every action feels like ypur character need a giant amount of effort to do, ds2 was the only souls game where I feel that I needed to use a shield, because of the beggining of the game. You can see what I talked about if you try a sl1 run in both games, it's way easier in ds3 even with a low stamina because your rolls work properly
ofc im gonna get hate for stating my opinion against all of you but genuinely all the points he tried to make just come down to him having a slow brain and being bad at the game
Idk how you can say dark souls 3 is fast but doesnt do anything to make you play faster paced like bb's rally mechanic, but then saying you had to roll so much and had to level up endurance because of that. Thats the way ds3 forces you to play faster since you cant just equip heavy armor and tank everything, no you have to roll no more turtle gameplay.
Hallelujah. A very similar take to my own. Couple things. Agility (the s stat), you compare to stamina. I always viewed it as comparable to 1&3’s stats that raises equip load (with a slight difference). In 1&3, your roll type determines s, so anyone that wants a mid or fast roll, will put enough points in to have them. Essentially, the issue is exactly the same: you want s, pay up. The slight difference i mentioned is that you can have the best roll possible in 1&3 from the very first second. Before taking the first step on your adventure-> 1. Get naked 2. Have God rolls. To some, that’s preferable, to others, they want an RPG experience that requires investment to grow. They want some diversity at the start, if not adversity. I think the addition of Agility is genius. Because there’s only 2 roll types in DS2, fat & normal. In PvP, no one does fat rolls, only normal, therefore there is no obvious indicator to the player how good their opponent’s roll is. Whereas in 1&3, the obviousness of the roll type is clear as day. The mystery of it favors the dedicated player, who takes in information and can make an educated guess, and adjust their play. 1&3, no mystery, no dedication needed, just eyes connected to a brain. The elimination of free god rolls also lends itself to greater build diversity. In 1&3, clothy wizards dodged better than armored warriors. Unless that warrior invested in equip load, just to be on par. In DS2, a Wizard has to spend a lot more to roll like a warrior. Last thing, I 💯 agree that slower combat is better. In DS2, there’s more mix ups. For example, the backstep attack. When you press backstep, you can immediately press attack, which will come out ASAP. But you have about 1.5 full seconds to still press attack, and get a backstep attack. You can linger, and wait until the last fraction of a second, then attack. The window to do that is like the Grand Canyon compared to DS3. In DS3, if you don’t press your buttons fast, things don’t come out right. When I say mix ups, let’s go back to the backstep attack. You can mess with your opponent by always lingering the full 1.5 seconds when you use it, training him/her to expect it to be one way. Then when the least expect it, it comes out like a flash. Or vice versa. Can’t do that in DS3, it’s always the same spam. Good video. Subbed.
Oh thank god, I'm not just insane. I've loved every fromsoft game since dks1 but I've tried to finish 3 at least once every single year since it's came out, only to wind up getting bored of the levels and annoyed by how bad it feels to play before uninstalling it. The whole thing about it having this identity crisis between bloodborne's engine and it trying to be a dark souls game is something I've been saying since release.
All souls games Are Great Demon souls/Ds1/ds2 is for people who Like slow and tactical gameplay Ds3/elden ring/Bloodborne is for people who Like Fast gameplay Sekrio has its own System and people who find it Easy will find the other souls games Hard I fully respect your opinion but in my opinion Dark souls 3 is the Best souls Game cuz it fits my taste and everyone has its own unique taste
Worst game ever made is definitely a crazy statement to me. However I am not an extremist on either side, DS3 was a great game for me after loving Bloodborne and both DeSouls, DS1, and DS2. Miyazaki has gone on record stating that DS3 was already in production when he became president, so really, it wasn't his decision, but rather a clean up job and a definitive end for the Souls series so that From Software can move on.
Maybe you should mention that when you start DSIII you got nothing on you but some pieces of low armor and weak weapons. You progress as you understand YOUR build and how to implement it. Of course the game gets easier when you get used to its pacing and everything else.
I literally sought this video out after hearing you say you hate III in your P review. I absolutely love this game. It's really hard for me to claim a 'favorite' dark souls, as I think all 3 are absolutely excellent, but this def has potential to top my list. As such, I am very curious to hear your reasons for disliking it. Just wanted to respond now, before I watch, while I'm clear-headed and not in hate-boner mode to say thanks for making such entertaining content about a series I love! Letsss goooo!
Even tho this is not one of my better videos, I like to think that I make at least a reasonable argument as to why someone may not like this one very much. Thanks for being a reasonable From Software fan! :')
So, thoughts: I think you are the first reviewer I've ever heard site boss gimmicks as a positive! So many people rail against them constantly! I enjoy a good gimmick here and there, I get it. I think a lot of people tend to just love what you hate :) folks really love the fast gameplay, learning to get quick reads on boss movesets and responding appropriately (aka 'the dance'), and then the surprise of the mid fight mix-up. I think you are VERY right about there being a 'best way' to play the game, and the experience being more 'arcade-y.' Shielding up with heavy attacks would definitely be a much more difficult way to play. There are also certainly a lot of mobs, I think we forget that when we've played the game as long as a lot of us have...and you know which areas to engage and which areas it makes more sense to just stay away from/know the best tactics for thinning the herd in ganks we need to approach. There are certainly a lot of areas with a lot of mobs...but I am one of those crazies who actually likes fighting through areas more than fighting a boss; sizing up a new area before running in, and methodically weeding things out, so it's right up my ally :) Also, Shine of Amana exists :) This was really informative. I can't really fault you for any of your views. It really does come down to those things you prioritize and find importance in within the series. I think a lot of people prioritize different things than you do, which is fine, but I can absolutely see your points. Great vid! All of that said, the bit about END is CRAZY! Hahaha, how much are you rolling that you needed to prioritize it that much!!!!
Oh! And PVP! I think one of the reasons I love this game so much is because it has the best PVP of all the series. All of those 'arcade-y' bits really lend themselves to a great PVP scene that is still thriving today....honestly that probably has a lot to do with why I value III so much.
One thing about adp people almost never consider - it's a class attribute. You're supposed to level it up on agile melee character. For a range character rolls aren't as important so you level atn instead. As heavy armored character you just tank damage. People coming from rollslop such as ds3 and elden ring think that flipping nonstop is essential part of combat - but it really isn't - slower pacing of the game allows positioning so you can avoid being hit quite easily. But on top of being faster, dark souls 3 brought back heavily punishing input buffer while speeding the game up (it was kept in elden ring and then turned with absolute shitfest in sote dlc). It's not that ds2 has no input buffer, but to much lower extent, and I tested it excessively. Even elden ring has worse controls than ds2 which is just laughable.
100% on this critique! This game is the Amber Heard of relationships. It starts off okay; but then you get to Pontiff and it's downhill from there. Bullshit bosses that heavily rely on RNG? And not to mention the DLC. My God, what a misery fest!
For me the one thing in DS3 that absolutely pisses me off is the s do not activate on input like the other 2 games and Bloodborne do. It's DURING. THE ANIMATION. I can't count how many times the game has screwed me over due to that ONE minor yet crucial change for a basic function. It plays with my muscle memory everytime I replay DS3 and it's extremely annoying. Also why is it that the enemies have resistance to nearly everything that makes poison and fire builds completely useless? Other than story orientation concluding the series, world building, and ease of access, I really don't know what they were going for with DS3
Started in 1, played 2 but quit because it was that badly designed to me. Played sekiro and loved it. And I played DS3 and loved it. When I did go back to eventually play DS2 I just bad a terrible time even just doing madnatory stuff while I explored everywhere in every other game. DS2 is the marmite here, I think this guys tastebuds just got acclimated to marmite and thats all he enjoys. I mean to say DS3 bosses are bad put of every argument kinda killed any hope I had this was a good review.
@@celiafrostborn Gael is still my favorite boss in the series. The boss fights are peak, for me. The high speed makes it more enjoyable for me. If the boss is fast, I need to be fast. Learn the dance or perish
After playing through dark souls, one blood-borne and Elden Ring, I have definitely come to appreciate dark soul threes bosses even more. They have by far the best and most consistent bosses of any of the from software games other than maybe Sekiro. The bosses in dark souls one weren’t very good outside of the DLC dark souls two bosses weren’t good at all and bloodborne bosses are pretty mid outside of the DLC.
Thought i was the only one. Dark souls 1 was a masterpiece and not just because of nostalgia ive played that game for hundreds of hours. DS2. Just as good as DS1 if not slightly less as good. Ds3 could not be less bored.
idk if it's a troll video but it made me laugh bc Miyazaki himself said that even elden ring isn't his perfected formula of the souls genre or game yet but is close ever game he himself makes
I am about to finish it, I left it unfinished business. I did Nameless King and Prince. I played each like 20-50 times. Nameless King especially with the second transformantion, damn it,. I ended up beating it with bow, because I saw sometimes he just walks at you and not attack but sometimes you still have to dodge things. I kept away from him. But the point is. I don't remember in DS1 or 2, in my first playthrough, to ever have played any boss like 20-50 times and not feeling like I figured out what's the proper way to dodge and attack, what are the window of opportunity, how to properly master it. I feel burned out and like I learned nothing. In DS1/2 if I played a boss multiple times, it didn't took me more than 10, and sometimes some easy bosses would be beaten in 1st try, sometimes 2-3-5 times, and during those times I would start understanding the patterns and realizing how to properly play. Then I would feel confident when I got it. In DS3 I still don't get it. I end up almost by accident to finally beat a boss and I feel like I learned nothing, everything is fast, frantic and chaotic, I never know when it's the right time to attack or heal up.
The Pontiff and The Dancer are etched into my mind as being some of the least fun bosses in this series, and the fake-out shit that they do to "HAHA, PYSCH!" you is so fucking irritating. We totally discussed this before, but DS3 definitely feels like Miyazaki trying to fulfill a contract that he had Bandai Namco. While I've always been kinda meh on the lack of experimentation in the series post-Dark Souls 1, each subsequent game does well to refine the previous games edges to make for a concise piece (and in DS2's case, outshines even DS1 in my opinion), or take things in a slightly similar-but-different direction like with Bloodborne. DS3 feels like Miyazaki going like "Ah fuck, I have to do another one!? Fine." Anyways, good video my dude. You suffered so I didn't have to... again.
That's literally what happened though. One of the major themes of ds3 is letting go and letting things finally die. Ds3 is basically From saying "this game shouldn't exist but here it is". I personally did like it a lot, but it's clear they did not want to make it, going so far as to have it be the main theme of the game lol.
You had some good points and some really bad ones. Seems like you haven't adjusted to the game's rhythms when I watched you fight soul of cinder at the end. You were impatient with your rolls, rolling inwards a lot and instinctively, which DS3 bosses are designed to punish you for. You want to be in the boss's face while rolling instinctively and in the flow of attacks. I can't tell if you recognize that your style of play from just this fight alone is telling you that you are playing the game wrong. This game should NOT be played like bloodborne, so the fact that you complain about boss design in DS3 and also the game's pace of play shows that you failed to try new strategies in your playthroughs
i really like Elden Ring tbh. it being an open world game is a bit of a detriment to it though tbh because i burn myself out on them before i can finish them. THAT BEING SAID, the combat of ER is significantly improved over DS3 and gives so much more control to me than DS3 does. it does what Bloodborne did by giving much better systems to make the combat so much more enjoyable
I came from your Lies of P video. You make some good points, but also some which are borderline mentally challenged. I want to say, I love DS2 just like you, it's my most played Souls game, but the way you compare it to DS3 is just so off. For example: - Complaining about ganks and the difficulty of dealing with them is DS3; In reality, the game is super light on ganks, the enemies have lower aggro range, you can continuously roll out of literally anything. If you wanted to, you could ignore all enemies and run through every area straight to the boss while barely getting hit - you can't really do that in DS2, you'd get chased all the way to the fog gate by the 100 enemies you've aggroed and get stunlocked when you try to enter the fog gate (assuming you'd be able to roll past the 1st couple of ganks, which is already a bit doubtful in areas like Iron Keep. I like DS2 the way it is, but half of its encounters are just ganks. It's honestly really jarring how you say that others are in denial on this - you are free to say stuff like this, but judging by the intro to your Lies of P video, you don't seem to like it when people call you out on your wild takes. If you keep making videos in this negative and provocative style, saying the wildest shit, negative reactions are all you can expect. I have watched a few criticisms of DS games I disagreed with, but you really make yours very hard to enjoy (I would expect your reaction here to be "don't watch then xd", but I have already watched in hopes it would be enjoyable, so I'm commenting anyways). But I digress. - Comparing having to level Endurance to having to level Adaptability - Have you really played DS2? The most optimal way to play the early game is to just pump endurance and rely on a strong weapon + resins for damage. Then you also had to get adaptability on top of that, which is more unintuitive than anything stat related in any other Souls game. Ideally, you'd do all of this with a rapier and spam r1. - There is indeed a lot of dodging on DS3 bosses. There's also a lot of dodging on DS2 bosses. What's the actual difference, though? There's a bit more strafing in DS2 and the dodge direction is more important, but with 90% of DS2 bosses, you roll their combo, then attack 1 or 2 times and sometimes you run out of the way of an AoE - same as DS3, same as DS1. DS3 bosses are quicker, but the player is also quicker to compensate. There are short combos and long recoveries that you can recognize and punish, and long combos where you have to be defensive for a bit. But that's all just increased difficulty compared to the slow, maximum 3 hit combos with obvious tells of DS1 and DS2; It only becomes the panic roll spamming you describe it as when you can't keep up with the pace. And even in DS3, you're not limited to just rolling - Pontiff is super easy with a shield + you can parry him, you can simply run away from Dancer's spinning thing, you can still get under the legs of large bosses, you can position to catch out bosses who move away from you like Midir, you can backstab Friede and run under her blackflame jump, you can strafe Gael's ranged attacks, you can back off and bait out easily punishable charge attacks. There's a bunch of depth in the boss combat in DS3, it's just a bit more difficult to learn. While writing this, I have also quickly checked out your opinion on Elden Ring - you called ER's combat a bit slower and making you dodge less compared to DS3. This makes it a bit too easy to discard your opinion on this, considering how many bosses in that game just endlessly chain attacks and make you constantly dodge with few safe windows (Maliketh, Morgott, etc.), and have their swings delayed like crazy. I still like the ER boss combat, but it's DS3 on steroids with no extra speed to compensate. Very hard to take you seriously if you complain about things in DS3, but then don't mind the same things, only cranked up, in Elden Ring. - Overall all your opinions on DS3 bosses that you present have really weird or just purely emotional reasoning: "No gimmick bosses in DS3 :(" (There are just as many gimmick bosses in DS3 as there are in DS1 and DS2. WTF are those examples of gimmick bosses, anyways? If DS1 Gargoyles are a gimmick fight, is Demon Prince not a gimmick fight also? Champion's gravetender? Friede is a part gank fight with a fake out, is that not gimmicky? You're just twisting definitions here to make sure that DS3 doesn't have the gimmick fights you like.) "Attacks have delays / fakeouts, it's so tiring" (while talking about a game where you gradually learn the movesets of bosses to beat them - what exactly is bad about bosses becoming a bit more complex to learn? DS3 is also the most forgiving of the 3 when it comes to avoiding your early roll getting caught) "Multiple phases just to increase difficulty" (If they wanted to increase difficulty with no extra effort, they would have pumped the numbers. Instead they gave us some of the best bosses in the series. The average quality of bosses in DS3 is also unmatched if looked at from any sort of objective standpoint. I know it's a subjective video, but when you provide no good reasoning for your opinions, then 1) the video is a bit worthless 2) you're opening yourself up to criticism.) I do agree quite a bit about the level and world design. Despite the gankiness and kinda unfinished look, I enjoyed the DS2 world and levels much more. DS1 levels are perfect in the 1st half, average to shitty in the second half, but overall still a much better feel than DS3. DS3 levels are just not very "soulful". But in summary there are lots of video game video essayists on TH-cam and you really stand out in a uniquely negative way. I will not bother you again, but I really do think the world would be a marginally better place if you stopped posting videos.
@@Sputnik34look i like your shit but , we aint asking you to stop , its your opinion and you have the right to state it however , your points are honestly good enough but you are very condescending and contradictory and i disagree with you on everything in this vid but please do keep making videos
@@AbyssHeavyConsortOfMalenia my videos are condescending or I AM? I tend to push buttons and my Lies of P video was literally intended to annoy fromsoft fans lol. Buty videos otherwise are just me expressing myself. I can and will definitely tone back the tone
Hard disagree on second phases being lazy. Ds3’s boss second phases always bring something interesting into play. The only bosses I can think of that are a little lazy when it comes to extra phases are Abyss Watcher’s second phase and Friede’s third phase. Also I wonder what your opinion on Elden Ring is after hearing about your problem with boss fakeouts lol.
Its lazy because they trot it out for every single boss. And having phases isnt the issue its how often they have you remove the entire health pool only to have you watch an animation or cutscene and start a new fight. Orphan of Kos had two distinct phases without needing a new healthbar and that was the very final boss in the entire game and dlc
@@GinkgoPeteEntirely a visual issue honestly. Even if every boss with a second phase just had one health bar with the phase switch coming at 50% it would be worse actually because it would look like you’re doing alot less damage than you actually are, making the boss seem more grueling. And also, it’s lazy because they do it alot? That’s what I’m getting out of that at least, which both of these clarifications make the take even more ridiculous.
As a big fan of DS 1, DS 3 and Elden Ring, with over 100 hours on each, and reaching 500hrs on Elden Ring, I honestly believe the drastic change of pace from DS 1 and 3 is not a bad thing, but rather for different tastes. It could definitely be argued that DS 3 feels like a different games series to DS 1 due to the change in speed of combat, which you could argue should've been used for a new world, rather than a sequel, but as an enjoyer of high pace combat, I honestly never found an issue or fundamental flaw in the combat of DS 3, after 3 seperate playthroughs, 1 as a sword'n'board knight, another as a heavily armoured full strength build and the last as a relatively light pyromancer. Can't say I remember stamina being a particular issue, in any souls game (Never played DS 2), including DS 3. I can see the potential issue of the amount of hordes you fight in DS 3, but beyond it feeling difficult, it felt intendedly so and paradoxically the fast pace made fighting such hordes feel easier
Glad someone said it. I still haven't beat DS3 because I don't like it. It's not like I'm horrible at souls games either. I've done a lot of the typical challenge runs for DS1 and DS2. I just never cared much for the frantic pace of the Bloodbourne combat, and DS3 leans into that much more than I like. I'm more into the slow methodical combat of the earlier games.
No build variety, speed of Bloodborne while you are DS bound. NPCs suck all around. Thought bloodborne sucked because there is no builds just melee. But DS3 is a slap in the face of the fans. I think it is the least fun game in the series.
This one is my favourite tbh, but people really need to stop saying "dark souls 3 is the best bc it returned to ds1's formula after the disaster that was ds2" While I disagree with most of your criticisms, i can understand you frustration.
despite me also hating on DS3, i will disagree on your opinion with the bosses. while its true that some do feel like shit to play, there's a handful of them that felt perfect in every sense Nameless King felt like a fair boss with very fun attacks to learn and dodge, with pretty cool hints to DS1 lore Champion Gundyr while being just the first boss but faster and no transformation, it still felt amazing to fight (and to get my ass handed to him LOL) and lastly, Slave Knight Gael. imho the best boss fromsoft made (and I argue the bosses in Bloodborne DLC are their peak). Amazing atmosphere, extremely fun to get through, challenging but stays fair through the whole fight, and a banger OST that makes for a perfect boss there are some other bosses i did enjoy, but they pale in comparison to those 3 imo. the dodgy nature of them can be boring i suppose, but i think if the boss is genuinely amazing to fight it makes up for it. and made me feel like playing through the game through all the shit it threw at me and tilted me, was worth it for those bosses alone great video nonetheless!
@@Sputnik34 yeaaah the DLCs arent great. even if i like gael, it felt like a slog going through it it was a nightmare getting through the first DLC, and then being stuck for a whole day on sister friede
Dark souls 3 was the first souls game I played and I played the others after it, but none of them really hit the same as 3 did. The combat for me is by far my favorite. and being new to the franchise and figuring out its secrets was really fun.
I love 3, but it's still my least favorite in the series. It lacks the originality, the creativity, the innovation and sense of discovery that all the other ones have. It recycled the plot and world of Dark Souls 1 and gave us a watered down version of Bloodborne's combat with weightless attacks and janky enemy animations. Still love the game, just my least favorite in the series. At least Dark Souls 2 made a huge effort to have an extremely unique story, world, cast, level design, gameplay innovation and creativity, regardless of what people may think of the overall quality.
I do disagree on a few things here, but I do at least agree with you on Ds2 being my favorite in the series. I prefer Ds3 to Ds1, but I think the primary reason for that is how defense works in the earlier titles. The damage dealt, even with upgraded gear, just feels bad to play with. For example, a 40 dex character with a +15 uchigatana will, on average, hit about 200 damage a swing with no buffs. Whereas starting out in Ds3 with a low upgraded Uchigatana, its not uncommon to see that amount of damage already. Maybe my memory is failing me as this is just my own personal experience, but I just think they balanced the game better in terms of enemy and boss tankiness. And this is why I think I like Ds2 soo much more. Because it has that weighty souls feel, but I feel like I can do good damage, and bosses or enemies don't just become complete sponges provided you're set up properly. Not to say certain enemies or bosses don't become tanks in late NG+ cycles but that it's far more manageable in Ds2 imo.
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FYI: In the gamescom demo dark souls 3 had the lifesteal heal mechanic of bloodborne :D
WHY DID THEY GET RID OF THAT
DARK Souls 3 is boring way to linear
@@Sputnik34 would probably make it too easy
You can literally buy ring for boss soul that does that lol
But you know what the game is still trash ds3 is flawless excpet its trash thats all i can say
@@litt420 Farthest thing from trash lol
The first time I played Dark souls 2, I fucking hated it, after 1, the movement felt wrong, janky, and weirdly light. I beat it, ignored the dlcs, and hated myself for it for a good month. Then I played it again, did everything (that I could remember to) and loved every second of it. That moment when the game clicked for me started my favorite souls experience in the series. I hold the opinion that Bloodborne is the best souls game, but Dark souls 2 is my favorite.
And then I started up 3... I still haven't managed to push myself very far after the Abyss Watchers. The movement and weapons feel good, but the enemies just feel too fast for what the game is. It feels like I'd have to poke them with a 5 meter stick just to not get slapped the moment I'm in range.
THANK YOU 😭 this is exactly my thoughts WOW
the lack of poise, the need of having to teleport to the worst hub in the series just to level up and do whatever you have to do (ds2's majula is better) clay textures, everything looks the same, not a single good area in the game btw. worst online in the trilogy. but hey at least the game has pretty good bosses
get good lol
@@ktkyo lack of poise is only shitty thing about this game to be honest
about that
I did a second playthrough of DS3 and suddenly everything clicked. Now I love the game.
i used reshade to get rid of the ash filter over the whole game and i gotta say, DS3 has some really great colors hidden under all that crap. someone once saw i did that and said "that's not their vision" and i said "i have almost no respect for that vision"
also shoutouts for pointing out all the mistakes people attribute to DS2 that are in DS3. people love to say DS2 has a fatal flaw and then name something that happens in every souls game
I feel the EXACT same way, DS2 was so nice and vibrant while DS3 was so grey-ish that every area felt like the same place, even when I know logically that they're unique. I think this is a Bloodborne ripoff problem where Bloodborne had a medieval ashy gothic-Victorian aesthetic that worked around into, while DS3 just slapped it on without thought.
Yes, also notice a pattern how every area in the game thats amazing, beautiful, fun to play and does not bore you to death... (Archdragon peak, irythill, anor londo, ashes of ariandel in a whole) IS NOT GREY AND LIFELESS!
I love dark souls 3 but everytime i boot it up to replay, ng, i think: "I have to go through that boring ass area again like undead settlement and farron keep"
gameplay wise it kinda disappoints
Did you use Incandescent ReShade? I don't hate the ash filter as much as others, but I would enjoy trying something new visually for the game.
@@scaevities DS2S with high res textures and LightingEngine makes the game look on par with Bloodporne and DS3 graphically. If not better.
@@scaevities DS3's whole theme and idea is that the world itself is tired and worn out from continuously linking the flame (it's arguably been that way since 1), so it looking grey and lifeless works in that way
I genuinely tried to love DS3. I put over 40hrs into it in my first play through (I didn’t even play the DLC) and the entire time I struggled to keep interest. The world/its lore, characters, and scenery never captivated me like DeS, DS1, DS2, and now recently Sekiro.
To me at least, DS3 lacks the “IT” the others have. I hopped on everyday not looking forward to playing but desperately hoping I’d finish it so I could be done. My only goal in playing was to say I beat the main game nothing else.
In comparison:
DS2 had me checking every corner, nook and cranny for lore , npcs, and hidden loot. I was reading nearly all the item descriptions and exhausting all dialogue with every character. All the while I’d spend HOURS just sitting and enjoying the atmosphere that is DS2 (don’t even get me started on the beauty that is the Ivory kingdom). Every time I hopped on I was always excited to see what i was going to discover next.
DS1 had me completing quest lines for characters I didn’t even find interesting cause I wanted to know more about the first flame and it’s impacts on humanity.
DeS had me looking forward to each arch stone (excluding the shit show that is Valley of Defilement). For me at least, I loved seeing the story come together through seeing how each world has withered away because humanity once again became tempted by the souls of Demons.
Sekiro has me enthralled with the beautiful story telling and combat. For the first time since I began my Souls journey with DS2 I find my masochistic side enjoying the seemingly Sisyphus level challenge of learning exactly how/when to deflect and Mikiri counter.
None of the things I loved from each of these experiences has shown itself to me in DS3. Which is why it’s the only Soulsborne game I uninstalled immediately after the credits finished rolling.
that's so weird to hear because ds3 is easily the most replayable souls game to me. i find myself blasting through the first third because the bosses afterwards are almost all bangers. pontiff, nameless, dancer, dragonslayer armor, twin princes, friede, gael, midir, demon in pain... i like them all a whole lot.
I love my man Miya, he made some of my fav games of all time, but if i had some millons to spare i'd love to make an experiment: make two games and let him direct one but tell the public that he made the other. I'm sure the reaction and critique of the fandom would be amazing
Thats what im sayyiiiiing
You get it. :)
I think some people just like ds3 because he made it and hate on ds2 because he didn’t but by liking games just because he make them overlooks what made them good what makes the games he makes good he’s good at what he does and all games he’s made are peak but people overlook and downplay what he does best and what make his game’s special, if you get what I mean?
✋PEAK FICTION 🤚
The trolling would be LEGENDARY! 🗿
Thank you for having my opinion.
But actually though, I've never heard anyone acknowledge how 3 gets a free pass on all the stuff 2 got torn apart for. I don't particularly like 2 either, I just don't get how someone can hate 2 yet love 3. I retroactively feel like 2 had a lot of love put into it compared to 3 which has always felt utterly soulless.
You don’t get how someone can dislike 2 but not 3? They play completely differently… how could you miss something so simple?
Your last sentence is just made up nonsense
@@ExpertContrarianI don't remember what was in this video but "how it plays" wasn't why people hated 2. Most of the criticisms in the matthewmatosis dark souls 2 critique video also apply to 3. That's not a defense of 2 either, I pretty much only like ds1
@@kleptomanta my reply has nothing to do with what’s in the video. Only what’s in your comment. You’re confused how people could criticize dark souls two and three differently.
@@ExpertContrarian I think you misinterpreted it. I wasn't confused that anybody could possibly dislike 2 and like 3. It was about people who said 2 sucks for specific reasons that weren't fixed in 3 but suddenly those reasons aren't even worth mentioning because 3 rocks.
@@kleptomanta oh, so you’re confused by a strawman you created in your head. The specific reasons people list for not liking DS3 are not problems in DS3.
When DS2 came out, people suffered many mobs coming at once because of its clunky control and disliked it. When DS3 came out, people learned how to deal with many mobs at once because of its fast pace and the broken straight sword. Meanwhile, I quickly realized that the mobs of DS3 don't chase you hard, so you could ignore all of them with spamming rolls, also the levels were too linear and no contraption, so spamming rolls always brought me to the next bonfire or a shortcut almost every level has. The whole levels in DS3 were pointless, but people didn't care because the bosses were fancy. I only agreed the boss section in this video. They were too repetitive.
In 2 they chase even less than in 3.
Food for thought.
Also it wasn't clunky, it was a different engine. 1 was way clunkier.
2 does not chase... like they just dont.. its less annoying
the only problem with ds3 is level design
even though it makes sense lore wise and all that every single area of the game is grey, dead, no life to it, plain.
early game sucks... game picks up at/after watchers
pvp is amazing
linear does not mean bad, its just that more people were used to the interconnected world of ds1 with less bonfires and more shortcuts and how you could play however you wanted to. its more subjecive, but the bonfire placement is every other second like you said, making it stupid easy.
its also the least clunky game, its not super slow like one and the combat is just better in every way. the world and level design fuck it up
ost,bosses,pvp the best out of all the others.
people go crazy for the game, without bosses its just... not it.
I love it but without the dlc and the great bosses it would easily be the worst soulsgame
i think ds2 is super underrated and ds3 is overrated
however my list stays the same for the trilogy: 1,3,2
it will always be better than 2 imo
ds2 vanilla had none of the aggresive as shit immaculate combos and roll catching on speed that ds2 sotfs. i put like 1000 hours into ds2 vanilla and sotfs im currently at like 100, it's so so different and MUCH more punishing if playing solo. honestly i don't care if anyone believes me, this was my favorite game for years.
maybe it's because the game runs at 60fps in sotfs, idk... it's just HARD as FUCK to solo this game now, and if you think i suck, please, just stop right there. sure im not in my 20's anymore im a bit slower, but i am surely not bad at this game.
@@blargblarg-jargon9607 Yep. The only advantage Sotfs gets is you dont have to buy all dlc separately. Vanilla is just the better version of the game but the minor flaws are:
its still 32 bit based
a little worse graphics(not even a con for me)
and dlc not included unlike sotfs
sotfs terrible enemy placement and it just isnt the best ds2 experience...
if you dont look forward to the online play that much i dont see how sotfs is better than vanilla+season pass
@@blargblarg-jargon9607 It is the reverse of what you said, have you ever played any of them?
Sounds like a fake fan.
The amount of cut content from this game slightly annoyed me, they had such an interesting premise at first. The released version feels neither as a proper original sequel nor a cool mashups of all things cool about the series but more like an uninterested and half harted mixture of stuff that people like to talk about online regarding these games
I think when a lot of people where dissapointed by DS2, they thought DS3 is back to the roots (done by Miyazaki, etc, etc..) but their arguments didn't make sense. Everybody was arguing how DS2 was linear, but praised DS3 for breaking away from this. So far I had played DS1 and DS2, so I went to DS3 as everyone was telling me it's the best of the series. And I got bored, I lost interest. I played through half of it and something didn't attract me back. First, it's more linear than DS2. At least in DS2 when you start, you can take 3-4 alternative paths if you want, you can play the game in different ways, even if the overall world isn't interconnected as a whole. But isn't that worse in DS3 where it's a linear path to boss, then some hub, then some castle area, then some boring swamp area, but there are no alternative paths unless much later. Not only DS3 is forcibly linear but most of the areas are so bland and generic, I have no memories of them since the last time I played. I will try to replay it with a new build next time, so let's see.
So, yeah I totally agree, I remember the videos "why DS2 is bad and why DS3 is the best thing since sliced bread" and couldn't make a sense out of them when I started playing DS3. It's the only FromSoft game I didn't finish yet, normally when I start a game I am so sucked into it's world and exploring, that I continue playing. It's good hear my exact thoughts of why somehow DS3 didn't catch up. And the constant spamming of enemy/boss combo attacks? That's the other one I can't get into. This is gone since BloodBorne and into Elden Ring. I play ER and the only way to do better is to put everything into Vigor and use Spirit Ashes. Else I don't understand how to find a window of opportunity to attack back besides rolling all the time and still sometimes getting hit. I think in the modern era they want to make these games like spectacle fighting but also with the added unfairness. I agree DS1 and even DS2 had slower more strategic battles that you could manage. The new games play quite different, maybe I should get used to it.
But yeah I don't understand the hate for DS2, even if I know it's many flaws, when the same issues are overlooked in DS3.
you are pretty much pointing out what i was thinking about the game from the beginning. thank you for the vid!
Thank you for watching! :)
Blink twice if Dark souls 2 is holding you captive
@@FMZown I sleep with dark souls 2 willingly
Funnily enough, after playing Sekiro and Elden Ring, is really hard to come back to this game because of the rollspaming nature of it. Add to that the gank structure of the first half, the weaker and limited magic system, and how much you have to do to craft a build that isn't a straight sword melee focused character, and you have a great, yet flawed game to boot.
Also, the DLC ganks, Gravetender and Halflight, are absolutely terrible.
I disagree, it’s the only souls game you can easily come back to gameplay wise after elden ring
@@A.H.goose1 I can see why, the gameplay is smoother than any other Souls. I just feel like the level design and some enemy encounters at the beginning could've been more interesting.
I would say Sekiro and Bloodborne are a bit more repayable for me, but I can see why many would prefer DS3 over any other.
The Boreal Knights and those jumping Grus are the best example of how unbalanced the aggressiveness of some enemies are.
My issue with 3 is that it has no...... soul (hehehehehe), what i mean by that is that it has no identity to call its own.
It's like they decided to create a Michael Bay/theme park version of the series: "what do people like about dark souls? Oh i know epic boss fights with orchestral music every 2 seconds, subtle and unsettling atmosphere like that of Fools Idol be damned! And Bloodbornes combat so let's mix create an ugly bastard child of the two, hey let's not forget people love Vaatys videos so we must make Lore as obscure and criptic as humanly possible, after all fans don't actually enjoy discovering the story..... What about the fanservice? Of course we'll make it with as much bad taste as we can, i mean people liked Artorias so we'll make an area that has nothing to do with the rest of the game so we can put their cosplayers there".
oh my god i just wrote a comment that sounds suspiciously like it ripped yours off! i'll edit mine now to reflect that (so embarrassing, and yet also heartwarming)...
for a game about medieval knights there is an insane amount of rolling, wading through swamps and precision platforming
Lmao
says "mediaval knights" right as someone is about to summon a laser beam at you
Dark souls is very much not about medieval knights.
@gitnjur Technically it’s a middevsal fantasy game and has a lot of knights so if you want to be specific it is about middeval knights, or some of it is lol.
@@sir_wolfenstien4017 none of it is
As someone who loved playing through DS3 I was curious what your take on it was, then it made sense because I am a dodge maniac, so the game felt really natural for me.
To be fair though I also love dark souls 2, despite thinking its slightly less good than 1 and 3.
I do absolutely agree that in 3 I miss the interconnectedness.
Lies of P is refreshing for this reason.
Only reason I even replay to this cuz I just finished lies of P and tbh for me best soul like story of them all . I love DS3 and it's easily best game in series 2nd only to Bloodborne. Sekiro I don't count cuz not rly souls like but it's their best game they ever made.
I'm very conflicted now. Your Lies of P video on how it ruined Souls for you had a lot of really interesting critiques and analysis on gameplay and the structure of these games, and then I sought out this video to see why you could possibly hate what was, to me and many out there, the most polished of the Souls Trilogy.
Firstly: I agree on the level design being fairly linear. There's a few branching paths but otherwise it's like following trails to the ends of their roads. My own critique on the game was that I always felt that the game's poise stat was never really given any room to shine. If you're a full on havel monster then you get some poise, but otherwise it's practically nonexistent and that always annoyed me.
I can kinda give you the "Dodging feels more necessary in DS3" point.. kinda, but for me it was because with how fast it was that I knew I'd have to dodge. In DS1 and DS2, I am able to parry almost every parry-able move VERY consistently, because I see it all coming from a mile away. That's why bosses have these "Fake-out" attacks, it's to switch up on how hyper-telegraphed EVERY MOVE in DS1 DS2, and DeS are. In a faster game, I have a shorter window to time, and it's safer to skedadle than to stand my ground. For me, I much prefer the faster combat style, and enemies switching it up on me just means I need to be more patient and wait for the swing not for the prelude animation.
I feel the bosses in 3 are... just like the bosses in 1? Varying unique bosses with different gimmicks? Wyvern, Yhorm, Great Wyvern, Deacons, Wolnir, Sage, Abyss Watchers Phase 1, Princes 2nd Phase. All of those guys have unique boss mechanics. Not to mention Old Demon King and Demon Princes both have stage hazard lava moves just like Quelag.
Here's the thing, from what I've found, the Souls game you start on dictates your souls taste forevermore. I have a buddy who's played since 1, and he cherishes the game. Loves it to death, and to him, DS3 was not as good. I played DS3 first, and going backwards to DS1 and DS2 I felt like I was swimming in tree sap the whole time. It felt horribly clunky and slow, so much so that I even have a mod to make the entire game like 25% faster, but that of course only fucks with animations and still feels off.
Aesthetic is purely opinion based, so on that alone I shouldn't discuss our differing opinions, but I wanna anyway. DS1 and 2 look incredible in several spots, and have more vibrant and beautiful colors... but DS3 is this universe at the end of it's rope. Just before the great end. The fire is going out and the cycle is dying. The world looks bleak because it is bleak... and even then first getting to Irithyll for the first time, wandering down into the Smouldering Lake, venturing across the ringed city, etcetera, these are all fantastic and beautiful too. Those views are incredible and beautiful and sometimes sorrowful and empty and that's worldbuilding. Gaze upon this sad dying world and despair for how much more beautiful it could be and was... for the fire is dying out and this world will too if you do not reignite the spark ashen one!
Or something like that.
I dunno, I know I won't change your mind, but I suppose I just wanted to defend a few of the points you made. Souls 3 will always hold a special place in my heart as the game that introduced me to what is now my favorite franchise/genre of games, though it's not my favorite Soulslike. (Elden Ring baybeeeee!)
I definitely don't disagree that this video isn't one of my best. I make a few flimsy arguments throughout it. I stand by my overall opinion in this video but I don't stand by this video if that makes sense lol
DS2 deserves so much more love than it got. Matter of fact, enough years have passed, now people are starting to admit it. The wave of DS2 videos popping up in my feed proves it for me. Dog piling, content farming gatekeepers gonna hate. Maybe give the game another chance? Forget about what your favorite TH-camr said 10 years ago. You might just have some fun.
I'm only two and a half minutes in, but the thing I hear people say that they love about this game is the PVP and boss.
Personally, DS3 is my least favorite of the lot too, and I've been considering giving it a second playthrough to see if I'll have a better time with it or not. In any case, I still feel like Elden Ring is DS3 but actually good instead of frustrating.
I hate pvp in dark souls AND I have a lot to say about the bosses 😂
@@Sputnik34 Same, I'll have to finish the video later but a big problem I felt was that the bosses were too fast while your character was too slow on top of armor being virtually pointless which matched poorly with constantly trading blows with melee which eventually made me hard commit to pyromancy
@@AlsoMeowskivichelden ring is trash. Biggest disappointment in gaming for me
@@thegreatpiginthesky3904 play bug fables
@@Sputnik34 "a lot to say about the bosses" brother, all you did was bitch about attack patterns, about delaying in animations, the game being fast and then just calling them bad, which are things that both ELDEN RING ANF BLOODBORNE do, Elden Ring cranking it up so much to a point it's actually detrimental and Bloodborne doing it no more than Ds3 does if not slightly more. Not only did you barelly say shit about the bosses, when you did you were as reductionist as possible and bitching about stuff in a vaccum while just briefly saying "but it's ok when Bloodborne does it. i came to the video expecting to see your reasons as to why you dont like the game since the title implies it's your "least favorite" which i completly respect, but what i was met was "this game sucks and it's bad" which is a completly different statement altogether and i had to pause multiple times just to grasp how full of shit you were in some segments let alone in the totality of the video
they basically mixed it with bloodborne in the worst way. the bosses and enemies especially. thankfully elden ring feels more like a true souls game lmao
Yeah I have been loving Elden Ring so far. I feel like they balanced out the combat to feel so much more balanced and interesting. The combat variety and weapon arts are incredibly more game changing than just making the combat faster
elden is overrated
Ds3 is overrated
i started ds3 few days ago but stopped playing it.
i was wondering why im not having as much fun with it as with 1 or 2.
Your points make perfect sense, i agree with all of them.
The bosses suck? And you like DS2? Man, i don't get you.
Just beat the trilogy for the first time. I can say the DS3 bosses are better, but I felt a whole lot better about DS2.
He has good taste unlike you
@@anomitas ds2 bosses are the definition of quantity over quality
they have the most bosses in the trilogy and 90% of them suck
with ds3 every single boss is great apart from one or two
its not tase, objectively and going with A lot of peoples opinions DS3 Bosses> DS3 bosses
you see that from every game critic you can always have your own opinion but to say one does not have a taste is wrong lol
@@dedde1311 All DS3 bosses are same, no matter what they do - roll. While DS1 and 2 it's tactics. Any arguements againts that?
@@sgorgardr227 Yes! You can actually parry and shield some of the bosses and its actually effective!
They make rolling actually fun, I assume you've never played dark souls 3 or gotten past crystal sage
The good souls is not in the earlygame, do play further you will retract your statement :)
I've played the whole Dark Souls Trilogy, one thing I can say is that, its atmosphere pales in comparison to 1 and EVEN 2!
2 FUCKS
Lmao 2 has no atmosphere besides Majula. Just a bunch of random stuff stitched together
@@ExpertContrarianthat’s literally dark souls 3. I literally can’t remember any area other than the dlcs cos they all look boring
@@norgani6957 that’s just you
@@ExpertContrarianthat is quite literally dark souls 3 my guy 😅
Based. You're the first person I've ever heard say DS2 is better than DS3 and when I think about it you are absolutly right. The DS2 lore is better and more connected to DS1 than the superficial DS3 references to DS1. DS3 didn't have dual wielding/powerstancing. DS3 should be renamed to Linear Souls 3 for how much of a straight line it is. They took away interesting things like the spice mechanic, bonfire asetic, armours with special abilities or stat bonuses, durability and poise are almost non existant, can't pop souls from the item menu without it kicking you out(you can partially achive it by cutting the detailed descriptions but you are losing info that way). Features that were actually fun and helpful.
Best combat system and difficulty, only game that dont dip in quality. DS1 first half best game ever 2nd half is reason I don't wanna play it to end. DS2 almost full of bad bosses and cheap gang fights and let's not forget probably one of worst boss runs in all games . DS3 is consistent and have by far best bosses except Bloodborne. Lore wise I can't say and 99% of fanbase can't .
yo the ds3 lore was literally exactly connected to ds1
@@hanilfsat8820I never get ganged up on in DS2. Thats all I get in DS3.
Which boss run is the worst? Black Gulch? That's only bad if youre stubborn and try to run through it without dealing with the statues. It's really short. Also there is a bonfire 5 feet from that boss.
@@Subat0micR0gu3 Sir Alant
@@hanilfsat8820 Allant is the king in Demon's Souls. Sir Alonne, maybe? I'll grant you that runbis a little annoying, but at least DS2 doesnt have ever-repawning enemies. That mechanic is useful at times
I think part of the reason that people didn't complain as much in Ds3 as DS2 as that they were aleady desensitized to certain changes such as the lack of an interconnected world and the enemy groups.
In my view, a better comparison between annoying stats would be between ADP and Vitality in ds3. Vitality was so much worse in DS3 needing something like 27 or so points if you wanted to do a heavy armor character, ADP by contrast you really only needed like 20 points in and also you level up the quickest in any souls game.
I like the video, I felt like the arguments could have been better organized but I think it's good especially as DS3 is such an overrated game in the souls series
Yeah it's definitely not my strongest arguments but I still stand by the points. I actually finally beat blood recently for the first time and playing through that game only made my opinion on DS3 even worse. It's like they NAILED this much faster pace in BB and then DS3 drops the ball SO HARD
@@Sputnik34 I just beat Bloodborne recently and it is pretty damning how so many cool moments of DS3 like the alternate firelink shrine and giving the eyes to the fire-keeper are just a complete retread of Bloodborne
I personally think Dark Souls 3 is the most taken for granted game in the series. Dark Souls 1 is by far the most overrated, Bloodborne's a masterpiece if we include the dlc, but even that is a little overrated at times. Bloodborne and DS3 are not too far apart in terms of overall quality. But to each their own.
@@HMCarsSOA Yeah I agree that their close in quality but my point was that so many moments are repeated in DS3 from Bloodborne. I disagree that dark souls 1 is overrated, it has its issues but I think its correctly rated as being a masterpiece
@@forcedintofemininity Fair enough, that is a valid critique of DS3. The main problems i have with DS3 are the drab levels and being a little uninspired at times, the starting levels of the game are far inferior compared to DS1 which in contrast hooks you in immediately.
But where DS3 shines is its music, combat and boss roster which i personally consider the best in the series. And Irithyll onwards is where the game truly starts to shine, apart from a few stinkers like Ancient Wyvern and Halflight, it's amazing boss fight after amazing boss fight. Elden Ring proved that DS3 is an essential entry in the series especially due to its combat and boss design, it set the foundation for Elden Ring.
The reasons i personally couldn't enjoy DS1 as much as much as the post-2015 fromsoft games is mainly due to the second half of the game (apart from the dlc which is perfect) and the overall boss roster (which is the main reason i play these games for). After Anor Londo i'm always thinking "oh no, we have to go through Lost Izalith and Tombs of the Giants again", and then i force myself to trudge through it, it's not the worst gaming experience in the world but still tedious and unfun to get through for me personally.
I still enjoy DS1 all things considered, it still has one of my favourite menu themes and has a magical atmosphere unlike any other, if its second half was just as good as the first and it had better bosses, i would place it above DS3.
Idk if you'll ever see this, but i came from your Lies of P video and was curious how DS2 was your 3rd favourite FromSoft Game, while DS3 was your least favourite. I watched both of your videos now on those 2 games respectively, but i don't really agree with you, and that's fine.
You see, i knew nothing of the Souls series when i started and just wanted to play DS3, bc it looked cool. When i then started DS3 back in 2017, i hated it for it's difficulty, which i only grew to understand and love after i killed the Soul of Cinder. After having over 1200 hours in this game now, the only point i can fully agree on was the world and it pretty much being a straight line with like 2-3 stray paths.
This is what i was so surprised by, when i played DS1 after. I'm still to this day impressed on how almost effortlessly the whole world connects in itself and that is what made me love DS1. Of course, the boss and enemy quality where nothing in comparison to DS3 bosses, at least in my opinion, i had a lot of fun with the combat.
After having now finished 2/3 games, it was time for DS2 and up until this day, i hate it with every fiber of my being. I only played through it a total of 3 times. One was the first playthrough, the second one was a playthrough where i wanted to give the game another chance, but it sadly didn't work, and the third was after Elden Ring, bc it looked weird to not have all the Souls games with a Platinum Trophy, so i completed it and instantly quit the game and deinstalled it after the Platinum trophy was unlocked. This game just feels unfair to me at so many points, i just hate to think of going through it again. But i can still appreciate that DS2 at least tried to be experimental with it's approach and it does look very good in quite a few areas. Will i still give it another chance at some point? Probably. I won't lose hope that i might find the fun in DS2 eventually, but it will most likely forever remain my least favourite Souls game.
With that said, some might argue that i only love DS3 more than the other 2, bc it was my first Souls game, but it really isn't. My ranking of those games would be:
1. Elden Ring (the variety of runs and the world just hits me on a different level)
2.Bloodborne (only complaints are that the main game feels really short and it's not playable in 60fps even on PS5)
3. Sekiro (The combat is just so satisfying to master)
4. Dark Souls 3
5. Dark Souls 1
6. Demon's Souls
7. Dark Souls 2
But i'm glad that people have different opinions on games. Even if i might question them or don't understand them, it feels refreshing to see or hear different views and opinions from time to time.
With that said, whoever reads this, i hope you have a fun time with whatever game you are playing now and i wish you a nice day
I love you for being a reasonable souls fan. I appreciate the comment and thank you so much for watching!!
@@Sputnik34 Ey no problem.
And i should thank you for the Lies of P video too. Wasn't sure if i'm gonna try it out, but your video on it made me quite interested, so i'll probably get it in like a week or 2.
Really liked it!
Try playing it slower.
And use the base Twinblade.
What weapons did you use, by the way?
@@asdergold1 I don't know if you're refering to DS2 and/or Lies of P in all 3 sentences, so i'll talk about both.
As for DS2, it was the Greatsword and i loved to use it. Without it, i might have not even finished DS2. Later i also used this toxic katana from Shrine of Amana (i think it was from there) in my off-hand and later switched between Greatsword and Fume Knights Greatsword. The fashion i created with all three weapons was outstanding ngl. Have to give DS2 that. I had no problem with the weapon movesets however and played it slow actually. The enemy spam in SotFS at least was what made me do it instinctively and was the main problem i had all the time. Also, i'm actually not that big of a twinblade fan. Neither DS2, nor Elden Ring. They both feel weird, although Elden Ring twinblades feel worse imo.
As for Lies of P, i used the Ark sword or whatever it was called, one of the early boss weapons you can create. The one that is a normal silver greatsword, but can transform into a lance and gives a stamina recovery boost. Such a good weapon, my god. Loved it
@@blackdust7353 How'd you like it?
My experience was kind of the opposite. I started with the faster paced Soulsborne games like DS3 and Bloodborne and they soon became my favourite games, had a blast with DS1 although it didn't capture the same feeling I had for the previous 2 games, and got to DS2 whilst still liking it found it really tedious and annoying, and I still do despite platinuming the game. I found a lot of your critisms really... odd to say the least, especially stuff like the boss phases one.
.Your point about ganks being in DS3 I both agree with and disagree with. It technically does throw groups at you, but whenever it did the enemies were usually really weak and didn't do that much damage with there maybe being one strong enemy amongst them. Encounters with 2 or 3 STRONG enemies were super rare. And even then you'd sometimes be given a way to escape/avoid the encounter like cutting down the bridge before Wolnir to avoid the skeleton horde, or an enemies aoe attack killing the others anyway like the enemies with the pus of man. Whereas in some of DS2's areas, the ganks will usually consist of the same mid/high level enemy like the Alonne Knights in Iron Keep and Sir Alonne's runback, or the area in Dranleic Castle with a bunch of Ruin Sentinel's.
.A point I think could have been brung up, and a problem many people, around the topic of ganks have is the aggro range in DS2. Enemies in DS2 have a super high aggro range meaning any attempt to back off for some breathing room usually ends up with a squad of enemies that just keep chasing you down until usually you leave the area completely making the ganks more annoying. It's more difficult to ease off and try to separate the enemies once they clump together in DS2.
.I think DS3 gives you enough healing options and the addition of lifegems would moreso hurt DS3 than help. I somewhat blame lifegems for DS2's wobbly and unnatural feeling difficultly curve and, while this is just an unfounded hunch, I believe lifegems were added last second cause DS2's playtesters were having trouble getting through the areas on just estus and rather than rather than re-doing the levels to make them more balanced, they added lifegems instead. Anyway, DS3 actually has a few options to get more health: You can allot your estus and figure out specifically how much hp restore you want in comparison to your fp, you have divine blessings, siegbrau, miracles, items like sun princess ring and ring of the evil eye, and you fill up a hidden meter every time you kill an enemy, and when the meter gets filled you get an extra estus flask.
.Your argument for adp having the same problem as stamina just baffles me. For one, endurance is a core stat, you're going to be leveling it regardless on enemy attacks, character build, etc and likely always consider levelling until you hit a soft cap cause its the thing most of your actions are tied to and dependant on. Whereas the problem many have with adp is it feels like a vital mechanic tied to an arbitrary stat. For example, it'd be like if the speed of your roll in DS1 was tied to your resistance so if you didn't level it you'd fat roll everywhere. You'd have the lingering question of "Why?" in your head as you put points into it. And two, it's just really vague on the description of what agility even does. "Boosts ease of evasion and other actions"... OK. First time I read that I thought it would reduce enemy aggro ranges and the "other actions" bit is just downright stupid.
.I just completely disagree on your point on bosses. I'd level the critism of bosses feeling very similar to play against more towards DS2 cause of the oversimplified movesets of the base game bosses. Most humanoid bosses in the base game of DS2 have a small assortment of generic looking slash, thrust, overhead slam attacks with the odd aoe attack on repeat ad nauseam and it took until the dlcs for the movesets to get more interesting. Veldstat's only unique move is him applying his buff. DS3 movesets felt a lot more unique to me. Also, DS3 bosses all feel similar because of the focus on dodging multiple attacks and waiting till you get an opening after to attack back...? That's like saying all of Sekiro's bosses are all the same because of the focus on deflecting and draining the bosses posture to get a death blow. There's obviously a lot more to the bosses that separate them.
.It feels like you just omitted the gimmicks within DS3's bosses out of disingenuity. You left out how the third Abyss Watcher instead fights the other two and you have to analyse the best times to engage with the main Watcher while he's likely distracted by the third Watcher, how Pontiff Sulyvahn's clone telegraphs the move/attack Pontiff is about to do, so if you see what the clone does you'll know what Sulyvahn's going to do, how Soul of Cinder has 4 different forms he can swap to each with their own moveset in his 1st phase, how Sister Freide will go invisible and you'll have to use your ears to figure out her location before she can sneak attack you, how in the Twin Princes 2nd phase you need to factor in positioning when dodging and attacking so that you hit Lothric as well as Lorian, you forgot Yhorm the Giant, etc. These can all be classed as gimmicks, especially since you class Capra Demon having a small arena and there being 2 Bell Gargoyles as gimmicks.
.Dancer of the Boreal Valley's entire shtick is she's a DANCER. she's gonna carry her weapons throughout her dance motions as opposed to doing generic DS2 Dragon Rider style attacks. It makes sense for her to delay her attacks. That, and delayed attacks give you something to learn about a boss. Call it boring but I'd say it gives extra layers to the bosses and gives you extra satisfaction when you master the timings.
.I seriously don't understand your gripe with boss phases. Its simple, if we're talking about a typical multiple phase boss then the boss gets progressively harder as the fight goes on until they reach their max difficultly at a certain phase, as opposed to the boss just starting the fight at their max difficulty like Artorias or Gwyn does. It's not some lazy attempt to be difficult that the devs have to "resort" to as much as it is just an alternative way to design a boss fight.
.How is adding a phase that shakes up the bosses moveset with new attacks or even completely altering the bosses moveset entirely mean the "designers were out of ideas"? THAT'S LITERALLY THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF BEING OUT OF IDEAS! Being out of ideas is either artificially extending a boss's healthbar without adding anything new to the boss or scrapping the extra phase entirely.
.DS3's linearity is one of DS3's most harped on about critisms, and it's one of the things I see people rarely give a "pass" on.
.OK... but why doesn't it matter? You haven't given any reason as to why it shouldn't matter beyond the fact that it simply didn't bother you. It'd be like saying "DS3's linearity doesn't matter at all, lol. I don't know why people would think its a problem."
.Whilst I agree on DS2 having the best art direction and colour palette, although your comparison seemed a little nit-picky, I think there's a reason for the drab, depressing, grey atmosphere. The whole artificial prolonging of the Age of Fire destroying the world through constant linkings, causing lands to smash and converge, starting to grind together resulting in areas like the Dreg Heap and the Arena you fight Gael in at the End of the World. I think this gives reason for its dead feeling world, compared to some of DS2's more vibrant areas, but I still understand why someone might have an issue with it.
I disagree with your playstyle point just off of personal experience. I understand the whole "r1 is the most optimal attack" critism, but in terms of DS3 having a specific playstyle it didn't seem so to me. I'd integrate weapon arts into my fights to flatten my enemy and damage them while they were recovering, I'd play super defensively with a Greatshield on another playthrough, r1 spam with sellsword twinblades another. It didn't seem like I was going to "get wrecked" if I didn't play a specific way aside from dodging multiple attacks. I could understand the the game having a favoured build/playstyle, for instance I think DS1 favours tanky poise-boi strength builds, DS2 favours Hexers, and DS3 favours reactive quality and dex builds but nothing that will railroad you into a specific one.
.The fact that DS3 has too many bonfires is not something people try to hide about DS3. Literally everyone pokes fun at the fact that the Dragonslayer Armour bonfire and the Grand Archives entance bonfire are so close and how needless some of the ones in DS3 are.
.All of the clips of DS3 ganks you show are of super easy to kill, skinny, mobs.
.Going back to a hub area to level up is also a critism regularly levelled at DS3. The only odd positive I've heard about DS3 compared to DS2's level up lady is her dialogue is shorter and quicker to skip.
.I'd say it's more specifically a premise that many believe Iframes should remain a fixed value and that it should be something to learn the timings of much like a learned skill rather than something that can be varied through levelling your agility.
.20:45 Why are you constantly dodging Dancer when you're not near? You're quite clearly out of her attack range and are just waisting stamina. Also, this worked for me a few times, you can time your Iframes to dodge through her beyblade attack and she'll spend the rest of her time trying to turn around to get you meaning she wastes her attack and you get to keep most of your stamina.
Rolling doesn't use up all that much stamina so you don't actually have to "dump" it with as many levels as you think. That, and your complaint about delayed attacks actually works in favour here cause the boss inadvertently gives you time to recharge your stamina, well provided your not constantly mashing the dodge button.
You don't really give a much of a reason to why DS3's bosses are "awful" beyond they have longer combos, they're not gimmicky enough even though Capra Demon somehow is, and they have multiple phases.
i meant to be honest your points are all valid critiques of my critiques but i've beaten this game 3 times now for the simple reason of making sure that i have something to actually stand behind when i talk about this game on the internet and people who are FromSoftware die hards. i stand by my points and actually after having finally beaten bloodborne recently, i think my opinion of DS3 is lower than it's ever been. Bloodborne is DS3 done right. FromSoft literally just took the bloodborne aggression and slapped it onto a game that didn't work fully with that style. it's one of the most baffling games i've ever played.
Opposite happened to me. Ds3 was my first dark souls game and i played the hell out of it. I loved it so much that I beat every optional boss including the dlc. After that, I decided I would try dark souls remastered, but when I got into it I just didn't like it. The story and the interconnectedness is amazing but combat just felt too slow to me especially after I played dark souls 3. I quit playing after I reached blighttown. Maybe someday I'll try to beat it again
I felt the same way. After putting about 150 hours in ds3 I went to dsr and hated it for most of my first playthrough. It really grew on me though and I'd def vouch for a second try :3
@@erin_lynnn thats cool to know. this comment was from awhile ago and now ive finished dark souls 1 twice. it grew on me aswell
@@michaelmai6514 lovely to hear!!
Finally someone talks about the gank squads and the exaggeratedly quick enemies! I must admit that my opinion of the game has improved over the years( i'd say it's objectively better than 2, instead me liking the latter more), but at the end of the day i agree with the take of Demodcracy: Dark Souls 1 didn't need sequels, in spite of me not caring for Sekiro i believe that Miyazaki is at his best when doing new stuff (Demon's,Bloodborne,i hope Elden ring)
lol, thank god they did not think like you.
Ds1 is just so poor in comparison with 2 or 3 imo.
But i guess the first love nostalgia is overshadowing everything.
Cause i was not there and started with DS2 and i could never even nearly understand why so much people love the first. Imo its just dogshit.
He rages about having to pump stamina.. i mean in the first you must have an absurd amount of weight, cause you better be below 30% or you gonna fatroll.. like wtf is this shit.
Or you just play naked.......
Starting to think I should skip 2 + 3
@@destroyermakerdon’t skip them
@@skullthunder3181 Ok
Alrighty, I'm back. So, I agree completely about the linearity of DS3. It's pretty much a straight line with like two or three offshoots that go into an immediate dead end and you have to go into them to get the key to continue down the line to Aldritch where the yellow brick road abruptly ends. Like, it was weird to me that one of the Lords of Cinder is just...sorta in the way. Not some epic boss you build up to through a long arduous journey, but one you just have blocking your way to the others despite being one of the four Lords you have to hunt down.
I don't remember Stamina management being that much of an issue for me personally, but it's also been a couple years so I could be mis-remembering. The biggest issue I had with one of the core features of the game was armor and how much damage bosses do. When I was fighting the last boss of them all for me (The Nameless king as I found him last), I was getting the floor wiped with me despite me having like 70 vigor and some pretty decent armor. So I got fed up and power-leveled endurance until I could wear Havel's armor. And all that extra defence amounted to....nothing. I then started getting scientific and started testing how damage I take with and without armor. And my results were that armor did just about jack diddly squat. Comparisons were that with one hit the nameless king would bring me down about 75% of my hp naked and 70% armored with full havel. Like, to make sure, it's basically the difference of me being able to heal to full hp with a singular flask swig with armor and being just shy of full without armor, and that's basically my experience with every moment of the game. At no moment in time did I feel like my leveling HP was making me stronger, it was more like an arms race where leveling HP was MANDATORY if I didn't want to be one-shot. And thus everything in the game basically one or two shots you, which also happened in Bloodborne but at least that game was made for it and you don't have armor in it either. Not that I liked it there either.
I mentioned in my earlier comment, I felt like attacking with melee in DS3 was just not worth it due to every swing of my sword basically resulted in a trade of blows with whatever I was attacking. I feel like that's due to the excessive speed of enemies vs your slow lumbering speed.
It really disappointed me, as there were cool ideas in DS3 I loved but the game itself was just so not fun, just a constantly arduous journey of frustrations that I couldn't really do anything but just either push through or stop playing with, which contrasted with the previous two DS titles where if you were struggling in one area, you had one or two others you could explore and do things in.
Ultimately, I feel like Elden Ring took the rough lump of coal that was DS3 and polished it into a brilliant diamond. Literally fixing just about every issue I personally had: Armor actually did something again, the world is so open that if you're ever having trouble you have like 200 (literally) other things you could be doing which will either help you learn how to survive better, equip you better, or just simply let you level up to perform better. The weapon arts were back and better than ever with insane levels of customization, the flask system returned, and the game was gorgeous to gaze upon. Elden Ring isn't perfect, of course. It has its flaws like repeat bosses that show up way too often, but it's a far better experience and is where I'd recommend players wanting to get into souls games to begin at due to its forgiving nature and updated mechanics.
I just started DS3 after finishing DS1 and DS2. You are absolutely right. I am trying to learn the boss moveset but they do not stop swinging. 😂
It's a nightmare 😔
Thank you for making this tremendous constructive critique. I keep returning to watch and consider its topics. To learn from it. 💪
When analyzing the game for myself, I came to similar conclusions. While similar, I did my best to analyze and compare them beyond the simple confirmation bias of agreeing with your video. I've even changed my mind repeatedly while playing all three games. To sum up my own observations in as few points as possible:
*Dark Souls 1 & 2, enemies followed the same rules as players:*
• They committed to attack animations and directions, could miss, and required timing for their moves.
• Victory felt fair and earned because mistakes were usually the player’s fault.
*In Dark Souls 3, enemies feel like they “cheat”:*
• Perfect tracking lets enemies follow you mid-attack, punishing movement.
• They have infinite stamina, chaining combos far longer than the player can.
• Randomized delays and fake-outs make learning patterns less rewarding.
*The player in DS3 feels more limited:*
• You’re locked into animations when attacking, dodging, or healing.
• Enemies, by contrast, can cancel, delay, or track you, breaking traditional strategies like circling or baiting.
• In Bloodborne, enemies are equally aggressive, but the player is just as fast and fluid, making combat feel balanced.
*DS3 often feels unfair because:*
• Enemies don’t play by the same rules; victory can feel like luck or cheese rather than skill.
• While DS3 is still a great game, it sacrifices fairness for intensity, which can frustrate players who enjoyed the strategic pacing of DS1 and DS2.
I would even compare DS1 and DS2 to rhythm games like Crypt of the NecroDancer because of their chess-like strategy and the way you "dance" with enemies.
I have been researching gameplay scripting and mechanics of Dark Souls from modders/data miners. I've been combing through the wiki to learn how this well researched game works and plays optimally. While I might be a skill issue, I tried to learn as much as possible from those that already "got gud". Along with listening to critiques and praises of all three games from fans like you, Domo, and many others. As well as deconstructing the game with ChatGPT and my own modest familiarity of game design, trying to study why devs made certain decisions in enemy AI behavior trees, stats, economy, animation, physics, and sound/collision detection; admittedly beyond the scope of this comment for my own personal learning purposes.
It does not mean Dark Souls 3 is objectively a bad game. It does not mean people cannot prefer this style of gameplay more. It doesn't even mean people cannot master these new, exciting mechanics! But, I think these simple but observable tweaks make Dark Souls 3 very different from previous iterations gameplay-wise. In that way, it is perfectly valid and understandable if some fans do not like its new style.
To disclaimer my personal bias:
I hate Dark Souls. I love Bloodporne. I used to dislike playing 1&2 solo and with friends. Never thought to try DS3. Returning to the series solo, I was actually excited to play DS3 during my binge playthrough of all three games, based on all the positive feedback I was reading online.
I like Bloodporne because it is faster paced and aggressive. By that logic, I should love DS3, too, but I do not. My character feels less like an extension of myself and more like a vehicle. I feel like I'm playing a MilSim game with clunky controls and item management while the enemies are playing a fluid twitch-reflex game. Challenging but I subjectively don't find that handicap fun.
When one party "cheats" in a game, the other party is encouraged to cheat (cheese) or quit. Game Theory and psychology covers topics like these quite well, à la reciprocity principle.
To conclude, I humbly agree with past Dark Souls fans' claims that DS1 and DS2 were punishing but fair. I used to disagree, but now I don't. I see it for myself. I have new appreciation for those older titles I used to dislike playing. I like DS3 too but less than DS2 or DS1.
the colour palette is neutral because of the story ambient (the end of fire)
I mean I guess that works thematically but it still is pretty lame in practice
sounds more like an excuse, its gray everywhere.
Couldn't agree more! There's something off about this game...
Don't know if you're a fan of Tintin books, but playing this game, reminded me of the disappointment I had after reading the final Tintin book written by its only author Herge (just like Miyazaki here), "Tintin and the Picaros". In that story, we find our main character (Tintin) no longer as excited as he was going on adventures in previous books. Instead he's a cynical type now; and the plot? We've already had it in previous adventures. Only this time the "rescue" mission and the political landscape of the story feel devoid of passion or any real sense of urgency. It's like a parody/greatest hits of Tintin.
I felt the same way while playing Dark Souls III, in that I no longer cared about the "curse" nor the prophecy I was supposed to fulfill. The only part of the game that still sticks with me was the Untended Graves which felt like SH otherworlds.
The plot doesn't do anything for me, the characters neither...the locations? Feel like a retread, and the thing I absolutely hate about DS3, is believe it or not, the "high" graphics...literally every area had me so distracted by its ornate walls or sophisticated visual and fog effects that I failed to see where enemies were and where I had to go. It made me miss visually simpler areas like Sen's Fortress in the original or Undead Parish where the high amount of visual intensity is not there to confuse you. This distraction caused by the visuals includes the boss fights too, where most of the time I couldn't make out what the boss was doing in the animations.
interestingly, even though I spent half of Dark Souls II wondering what it's all about, until the plot finally kicked in around the Castle stage, I still find that game more memorable and exciting than DS3.
Thanks for another awesome video. Cheers from Iran.
Im all for opinion pieces but... Some of these criticisms... Are counterintuitive
Yeah this isn't my best video. I stand by sthe points but this video could have been significantly better written
@@Sputnik34 For sure, but it captures the raw emotional reaction of how this game makes you feel...which is like shit. It's an abusive relationship. One keeps going back for more thinking it will get better, but it never does. We convince ourselves it's good. We keep thinking the problem is with us, with ME. But it's not. It's the game.
@@Sputnik34 Do it again
His points are perfectly fine, you’re just a Dark Souls 3 zoomer 😂
@@panzu5781 toxicity what a good way to help me see a point maybe? methinks this fandom is hypersensitive
Dark Souls III has good bosses. That’s it, that’s all I like about the game. The narrative isn’t too terrible either, but the gameplay is not good when compared to the first 2, the world is the worst in the series, and the normal enemies are atrocious. Still love the game though, just my least favorite soulsborne game.
im too lazy to finish the video but i have some counter points. quite a few enemies stagger with a single light attack letting you chain that into another attack or roll which is great for crowd control. also theres a random drop system where killing enemies refills your estus so the healing is not as restricted as you think. you can get 9 or 10 flasks before the abyss watchers too.
I’m one of those that think ds2 is the best souls game. Ds3 is right there with it though. After blood borne and sekiro, ds3 shouldn’t feel fast for you.
"Dark Souls is at its best when its combat is slow, heavy, and deliberate."
"A majority of the game's bosses, despite the varied moveset and the diverse nature of the characters themselves, all feel very, very similar to play against."
Thank you for saying this. As someone who found DkS3 unappealing, I'm glad that I share this perspective with someone else. I felt that I was going crazy when everyone else around me liked DkS3 but I'm just "meh, i prefer DeS, DkS1, and DkS2 better" about it.
Also, to add. The bosses feeling so similar to each other made the entire game a blur to me. I was geniunely surprised when I arrived at the last level because it didn't felt like I was closing on that point. 😂
Slow combat sucks
Glad to see i wasn't the only one who thought 3 was overrated, it does do a lot of things right but also a lot wrong and feels off compared to the other games and 3s ng+ was a massive downgrade from 2s definitely my least favourite as well with my favourites being 1 and Bloodborne which are the best fromsoft has done imo
The only things I loved about Dark souls 3 are the dlc's bosses, the rest of the game is kinda mid 😔
@@Abbaa69 for me the biggest positive about 3 is the music, 3 by far has the best original soundtrack but everything else could have been better
I know I'm late but as I can agree with the first half of the video about enemy placement you contradict yourself hard at 12:36. You say that bosses in ds3 are worse because you don't need to learn their moveset and gimick to beat them because of spam dodging, however you then proceed to say at 12:36 that the long windup animations are annoying and unfair but if you learnt the moveset of these bosses you would be able to dodge these attacks. You still need to learn the movesets of bosses in this game because thats when they hit you with their gimmicks like the dancers flowing long and super fast attacks or Lorian's teleports or the watchers fire after effects hurting you for rolling to much. After finishing this video, It almost feels as if you took the spam roll and attack that ds3 has and used it as a crutch, to not learn the enemy and boss attacks to kill them faster and more efficiently but almost as if you got lazy and spamed your way through the entire game banging your head against the wall until the boss was dead instead of learning the boss and when the game punishes you for spam rolling you call it unfair and annoying.
yeah this isnt my best video. there are plenty of straw man arguments in it. I do still believe in my overall opinion about the game, but i would remake this video if i could.
Yeah because I 100% agree ds3 inst perfect and I feel your other points about the enemies in the starting areas and the areas not being as good as the other 2 is done very well.@@Sputnik34
i forced myself to beat ds3 a little over a year ago, i dont remember a single thing after the dancer. i wasnt sure if i had beaten the game or not until i checked the achievement i got for the final boss
I am sorta confused on your point about the hordes of enemies, because dark souls 1 catacombs and blight town had it worse to be honest.
I personally never had much of an issue with blighttown but the catacombs is a terrible level lmao
I just got into this series about six months ago and have been playing through the games. I just completed 3, and Im slightly let down. It just feels different...really hard to explain. DS2 is by far my favorite so far.
I've beaten this game like 3 times and find it incredibly fun but I respect your opinion 👍
Personally getting stuck on bosses as you slowly master the timing of the dodging and when to hit especially on the DLC is just so satisfying to me especially when you finally beat them
So I’m new to From working backwards from Elden Ring and it’s DLC. I just beat all of DS3 with like 27 endurance invested. I used rings that buffed my stamina recovery and one added 5 points but I never felt pressured to level it the whole second half of the game. I just didn’t sprint in battle, complete a combo and then expect to roll after. The flow of DS3 is very “get in, get out” and knowing when to do both reliably. Trying to stay close all the time will burn stamina, turn the game into a roll fest and frustrate you that you don’t have stamina left for attacks. I loved the aggressive/fall back/aggressive/fallback flow of DS3
"the entire experience feels like leftover design scraps from a worn out miyazaki"
he says about one of the fairest, most well polished games i will ever play in my life
I appreciate the love for DS2 shown here, but I don't agree with your overall stane on DS3. While I love your contrarian insight, I 'll have you know that I don't level up stamina until the end of the game and not more than a few points. Likewise, I don't level up ADP in DS2 more than a few points either though.
3 is so hard once u go ng4 and above it gets nuts i called it quits in 60hrs, was ng6 by then. That already tells u its a 'run past everything' game. DS1 and Elden Ring are only things staying on my console, 2 is ok but its a loooong game with a zillion enemies u have to defeat and its clunky
This is an extremely small thing but I need to correct you on this
The difference between skipping dialogue with the firekeeper in DS2 vs DS3 is that
1. From a video I'm watching DS2 Firekeeper has a lot more dialogue to skip through to level up, DS3 Firekeeper has like 2-3?
2.Firekeeper is cuter and when you do specific emotes Firekeeper does a little twirl. Aka DS3 Firekeeper is based.
I can’t say j agree with a lot of your points but you explained them well and ensured that it doesn’t feel like you are shoving your opinion down our throats like a lot of other critics who I feel have a tendency to think they are right and everyone else is the one who is wrong(I love there channels but tbh Joseph Andersons elden ring video and hbomberguys ds2 vid I find not that good as they state opinionated things with little evidence and just think they are right without really a good point like calling an attack bs while they clearly make a mistake)
Thanks for watching! I always try to be as objective as possible :)
Hard agree. At least this content creator shows his perspective and why he feels that way. Joseph Anderson's critique of ER was very uninformed, aimless, bloated and showed lack of understanding of the game's rulesets. Even if OP doesn't like a beloved game, like DS3, it will do a much better job than Joseph ever could.
@@enman009 yeah he admits in the video to not bothering to learn the bosses and blames the gmae for it
My issue is when channels that seem well informed act like they are being truthful
A lot will think they are correct even when they are factually incorrect because the think the content creator knows more than them
Ds3 is my favorite game ever yet I respect this video on it because of how it was made and I cannot say the same for Elden ring with Joseph tbh
@@doolenny9458 Yeah, game criticism isn't as mature as, say, film or music criticism, where there's better articulation of thoughts and isn't just a matter of "x thing is good/bad". But hey, I guess just saying it's an opinion makes it immune to criticism.
Yeah, DS3 is a great game, probably the most consistent of the Souls Trilogy, but I appreciate that OP made some understandable points, even if I disagree. The main bosses are certainly enjoyable, but I think Sekiro and Elden Ring base game roster are a work of art.
I don't enjoy being a contrarian so i gave this game a lot of chances and it eventually grew on me, however i still have some big issues with it:
-All the schools of magic are useless unless you want to roleplay or make meta builds for pvp.
-Poise is as absent as my brain when studying engineering.
-Covenant farming is the wooooooooooorrrrrrssssst, specially if you don't want to pay that damned Plus.
-Amen to what you said about them gank squads.
-Lore is needlessly criptic and the main story premise repeating DS1 to a T is lame AF (as farmingforcovenantitemsoffline). Seeing that Sullhyvan was meant to be the main bad guy makes a lot of sense since the most unique and interesting parts of the story are related to him.
-Fanservice is cool on the secret areas, but it damages the flow of the story on the main areas ( Abyss watchers have NOTHING to do with the rest of the world in any shape or form).
-A big part of the "challenge" comes from this game having the most restrictive healing mechanics, miracles suck and you have no secondary way to recover HP, something that was present in 1 and 2.
I've beaten this game today and all I have to say is that DS 3 didn't age well, once you press the jump button in Elden Ring you know there's no coming back, now I'm actually scared to replay bloodborne. BTW I agree on most of your points, my main problem with this game is the lore being redundant (if you played DS 1), questline being uninteresting for the most, with the only exception of yuria and anri. No powerstancing, you only have a couple of weapons, it feels like the game forces you to use a shield and the black knight's shield is so broken that you don't even need to roll sometimes. I love to cast in this type of games but it feels so useless in PVE, just equip a big weapon and destroy bosses. IDK about pvp, I never cared honestly. Finally the game isn't optimized at all on pc, i don't have the highest end pc but I can't understand why sometimes I've got 60 fps and sometimes 15 randomly with costant stuttering throughout the game, I tried to mess up with the graphic options but, with the only exception of resolution, nothing changes
Not to be the “skull issue!” guy, but you basically just called the game bad because you had a difficult time playing it because of mechanics, pace, and level design… a game meant to be an overwhelming and difficult one to play.
You quite literally are just saying skill issue because you don't like his criticisms of the game. You're also saying the game is hard for the sake of being hard. That doesn't make the game good, nor does it invalidate his criticism
I never liked the term "Git Gud" or "Skill Issue", but man, you deserve it.
I've beaten the game 3 times lol
do you have an elden ring video because it seems you just don't like fast souls bosses
When enemies don't stagger to a heavy attack but will stagger from spamming R1... It becomes grueling and repetitive. More than half of the game's boss roster sucks balls. it's a very forgiving game too, felt like someone was holding my hand exploring the game's level design.
I felt like the game was more fun and wanted you to run past most the enemies in mor then half the levels.
Ds3 is the point where souls game becomes more casualized
I've just realized that every path in DS3 is literally a straight line or a big open empty area.
There are less than 10 semi-circular or circular paths in that entire game, including the DLC.
I just finished Dark Souls 3 and even tho I respect all of your points I just can't agree with them. I think the only things that you pointed out that I agree is the color pallete and extreme agressiveness of some enemies (those big skeletons with blue capes in the catacombs almost made me cry)
I don't think this game is just a dodge festival because you can avoid almost everything if you just stay a little far away from the enemies, because even if this is just as fast as Bloodborne, it is still Dark Souls and should be played like Dark Souls (waiting for your "turn" and stuff like that)
Anyways, great video and sorry for the bad english
Are you out of your mind? Stamina had never mattered as little as it did in Dark Souls 3. Rolling takes a fraction of what it used to (you can roll about 8 times in a row without investing a single point into stamina or boosting it with items) and you can dish out more attacks than ever before with the same stamina cost. And if that wasn't enough, the base regen rate is faster than in the other games too, kind of like you had the Chloranthy Ring always on. I only ever level up stamina once I hit soft caps in my primary stats because it's frankly unnecessary, just a minor bonus.
While DS3 is my 2nd to least favorite (behind DS2) and I do think it's very overrated, I can't agree with your takes at all.
🤣
You didn’t factor in how often the enemies force you to use so much stamina. Those big skeleton enemies are a prime example of it. They just don’t stop swinging at you.
Nah
Stamina in DS3 its not as worse as in DS2 but
It's still fucked up due to the how much the weapons consume and how much you are forced to roll in the game
Its was that retarded that they fixed it in elden ring where the stamina finally feels right
Honestly my first playthrough if ds3 i never put any points into stamina until Soul of cinder and kept my vigor at like 20 untill lordran 😭
In the next soulsborne game they should bring back the ds2 art designers and art style.
I feel so heard. Dark Souls 3 was soooooooo bad when i first played it, it was the only game where i NEEDED to regularly panic roll, i never panic rolled in DS2. It’s just so boring and linear compared to the rest of the games and i felt insane seeing everyone else praise it
Thanks for defending my beloved DS 2 man,i know there are a lot of people out there loving DS 2,i personally think that DS2 is the best of the franchise,i am a die hard fan of 1 and 2 but i can't seem to get past first few hours of 3 without feeling the need to uninstal and never look back at it,such a horendous game.
Bless this video. I don't agree on everything but some points are so good and I'm glad someone put words into it.
One of these points is the devs being fed up with Dark souls during that time. Myazaki doesn't like to make sequels and would rather go on a "new" game (like Dark Souls after Demons' Souls). Even one of the main theme of the game reflect that : "ending things for good". My guess is that the devs tried to please the fans at all cost to finish the "souls", hence the reccuring areas/ characters/ enemies from DaS1 and DaS3 and most of the bosses trying to be Arthorias / Gwenn / Ornstein and Smough (the most liked/popular bosses amongst fans) and ends up being rollfest number 2456.
I respect what the devs tried to do, but I missed the grounded combat and bosses of Dark souls 1 or the experiments/risks taken by Demon's Souls and to some extent Dark Souls 2. That said, despite the grey palette, the game looks absolutely stunning . I would rather had a Bloodborne 2 than Dark Souls 3 tho.
Thanks so much! I'm very happy to know that there are others out there :')
@@Sputnik34 No pb dude, we're not alone! Others youtubers like MatthewMattosis or Synthetic Man don't really like Dark Souls 3 and explained why in videos.
A wise man once said "People are allowed to have opinions, even when their opinions are wrong."😌
which is what i say to everyone who likes dark souls 3 :')
I guess coming from ds1, and 2, you’d expect the more interconnected and open world, but I feel like the linearity lets the devs balance the difficulty better. It makes sure that the player reaches each area with adequate levels and skill. I think that quickly rolling through attacks and punishing when possible is also just way more fun and satisfying than the generally slower combat from the earlier games. I am 100% biased because it was my first souls game, and it’s genuinely still my favorite game ever, but I can understand some of the points you make.
I really don't get it you hate on dark souls 3 bosses having multiple phase. It just feel bizarre that the bosses get more moveset and change how that boss work come out as negative rather a positive.
Also ds2 easily had the worst area design, not the interconnected map design.
I feel that constantly giving bosses multiple phases is just a lazy way to make the game hard without much effort. I don't mind boss battles having multiple life bars but in DS3 it feels to me like FS werent confident in their own boss battles so in and effort to make sure its still hard they kept piling those kinds of fights on.
@@Sputnik34 I found putting two dog with a boss inside a small arena or making a platformer boss inside a game that is not design to be platformer or making a ancient dragon do so much damage that if make one mistake you died or just straight up reskin a boss fight but there two of them ( example dragon rider, those two piece of shit in reindeer fuckland, two guardian ape) to be more lazy then create a new phase for a boss
Let me ask you a question
Let say they decide to make ancient dragon from DS2 doing less damage but adding a second phase with new moveset. Would you like the boss more.
@@Sputnik34 I find this statement rather questionable. You realise most 2nd phases have vastly different movesets or AI behaviour? For example Gael, Soul of Cinder, Abyss Watchers, Nameless king, Oceiros, Ludwig, Lawrence, Orphan of Kos, Friede, Father Gascoigne, Sword Saint. Regardless if you like them or not, to say there's not much effort put into them is objectively untrue
If every boss behaved the same way and used the same attacks against you the whole fight it would become extremely boring. Having multiple phases spices up the gameplay, tests your ability to adapt to new situations and keeps you on your toes.
and yet he loves lies of p who always had second phase for his boss with no differences between them ,they just deal more damage . he is just incoherent. @@dannyboi5887
@@Sputnik34second fases aren't made to make the bosses harder, they are made because second fases are cool in concept, seriosly second fases are a common thing in alot of games that don't tried to be hard
I havely disagre with the point made about stamina, I beated the game in my first playthrough with only 25 stamina at max, and I never felt that I didn't have enought stamina, I think that you are spaming roll too much and not positioning properly.
While in dark souls 2 the beginning of the game feels like shit because of the lack of adaptability, the roll doesn't work and every action feels like ypur character need a giant amount of effort to do, ds2 was the only souls game where I feel that I needed to use a shield, because of the beggining of the game.
You can see what I talked about if you try a sl1 run in both games, it's way easier in ds3 even with a low stamina because your rolls work properly
ofc im gonna get hate for stating my opinion against all of you but genuinely all the points he tried to make just come down to him having a slow brain and being bad at the game
"Ofc I'm gonna get hate for stating my opinion" - proceeds to literally insult me
@@Sputnik34 If you got offended then thats your problem. I stated the obvious. You cant handle fast paced combat, youre slow.
@@YvngCagoBeats I can handle fast combat. Bloodborne is my favorite from software game you clod
Whats the story of that oppossum?
They're my favorite animal!
Idk how you can say dark souls 3 is fast but doesnt do anything to make you play faster paced like bb's rally mechanic, but then saying you had to roll so much and had to level up endurance because of that. Thats the way ds3 forces you to play faster since you cant just equip heavy armor and tank everything, no you have to roll no more turtle gameplay.
@@WilliamGunnarsson-r6s i guess that's fair but I still think that's a very weak comparison IMO
Hallelujah. A very similar take to my own.
Couple things. Agility (the s stat), you compare to stamina. I always viewed it as comparable to 1&3’s stats that raises equip load (with a slight difference). In 1&3, your roll type determines s, so anyone that wants a mid or fast roll, will put enough points in to have them. Essentially, the issue is exactly the same: you want s, pay up.
The slight difference i mentioned is that you can have the best roll possible in 1&3 from the very first second. Before taking the first step on your adventure-> 1. Get naked 2. Have God rolls.
To some, that’s preferable, to others, they want an RPG experience that requires investment to grow. They want some diversity at the start, if not adversity.
I think the addition of Agility is genius. Because there’s only 2 roll types in DS2, fat & normal. In PvP, no one does fat rolls, only normal, therefore there is no obvious indicator to the player how good their opponent’s roll is. Whereas in 1&3, the obviousness of the roll type is clear as day. The mystery of it favors the dedicated player, who takes in information and can make an educated guess, and adjust their play. 1&3, no mystery, no dedication needed, just eyes connected to a brain.
The elimination of free god rolls also lends itself to greater build diversity. In 1&3, clothy wizards
dodged better than armored warriors. Unless that warrior invested in equip load, just to be on par. In DS2, a Wizard has to spend a lot more to roll like a warrior.
Last thing, I 💯 agree that slower combat is better. In DS2, there’s more mix ups. For example, the backstep attack. When you press backstep, you can immediately press attack, which will come out ASAP. But you have about 1.5 full seconds to still press attack, and get a backstep attack. You can linger, and wait until the last fraction of a second, then attack. The window to do that is like the Grand Canyon compared to DS3. In DS3, if you don’t press your buttons fast, things don’t come out right.
When I say mix ups, let’s go back to the backstep attack. You can mess with your opponent by always lingering the full 1.5 seconds when you use it, training him/her to expect it to be one way. Then when the least expect it, it comes out like a flash. Or vice versa. Can’t do that in DS3, it’s always the same spam.
Good video. Subbed.
Oh thank god, I'm not just insane. I've loved every fromsoft game since dks1 but I've tried to finish 3 at least once every single year since it's came out, only to wind up getting bored of the levels and annoyed by how bad it feels to play before uninstalling it.
The whole thing about it having this identity crisis between bloodborne's engine and it trying to be a dark souls game is something I've been saying since release.
i only speak da true true. thanks for watching!
All souls games Are Great
Demon souls/Ds1/ds2 is for people who Like slow and tactical gameplay
Ds3/elden ring/Bloodborne is for people who Like Fast gameplay
Sekrio has its own System and people who find it Easy will find the other souls games Hard
I fully respect your opinion but in my opinion Dark souls 3 is the Best souls Game cuz it fits my taste and everyone has its own unique taste
Worst game ever made is definitely a crazy statement to me. However I am not an extremist on either side, DS3 was a great game for me after loving Bloodborne and both DeSouls, DS1, and DS2. Miyazaki has gone on record stating that DS3 was already in production when he became president, so really, it wasn't his decision, but rather a clean up job and a definitive end for the Souls series so that From Software can move on.
@@controlschemekeaton it's been a while but do I say the worst game ever made?? 😭
@Sputnik34 I’ve definitely played worse than ds3 but it is one of the worse in the soulsborne series. Ds2 Is HEAVILY underrated!
Maybe you should mention that when you start DSIII you got nothing on you but some pieces of low armor and weak weapons. You progress as you understand YOUR build and how to implement it. Of course the game gets easier when you get used to its pacing and everything else.
I literally sought this video out after hearing you say you hate III in your P review. I absolutely love this game. It's really hard for me to claim a 'favorite' dark souls, as I think all 3 are absolutely excellent, but this def has potential to top my list. As such, I am very curious to hear your reasons for disliking it. Just wanted to respond now, before I watch, while I'm clear-headed and not in hate-boner mode to say thanks for making such entertaining content about a series I love! Letsss goooo!
Even tho this is not one of my better videos, I like to think that I make at least a reasonable argument as to why someone may not like this one very much. Thanks for being a reasonable From Software fan! :')
So, thoughts: I think you are the first reviewer I've ever heard site boss gimmicks as a positive! So many people rail against them constantly! I enjoy a good gimmick here and there, I get it. I think a lot of people tend to just love what you hate :) folks really love the fast gameplay, learning to get quick reads on boss movesets and responding appropriately (aka 'the dance'), and then the surprise of the mid fight mix-up. I think you are VERY right about there being a 'best way' to play the game, and the experience being more 'arcade-y.' Shielding up with heavy attacks would definitely be a much more difficult way to play. There are also certainly a lot of mobs, I think we forget that when we've played the game as long as a lot of us have...and you know which areas to engage and which areas it makes more sense to just stay away from/know the best tactics for thinning the herd in ganks we need to approach. There are certainly a lot of areas with a lot of mobs...but I am one of those crazies who actually likes fighting through areas more than fighting a boss; sizing up a new area before running in, and methodically weeding things out, so it's right up my ally :) Also, Shine of Amana exists :) This was really informative. I can't really fault you for any of your views. It really does come down to those things you prioritize and find importance in within the series. I think a lot of people prioritize different things than you do, which is fine, but I can absolutely see your points. Great vid! All of that said, the bit about END is CRAZY! Hahaha, how much are you rolling that you needed to prioritize it that much!!!!
Oh! And PVP! I think one of the reasons I love this game so much is because it has the best PVP of all the series. All of those 'arcade-y' bits really lend themselves to a great PVP scene that is still thriving today....honestly that probably has a lot to do with why I value III so much.
One thing about adp people almost never consider - it's a class attribute. You're supposed to level it up on agile melee character. For a range character rolls aren't as important so you level atn instead. As heavy armored character you just tank damage. People coming from rollslop such as ds3 and elden ring think that flipping nonstop is essential part of combat - but it really isn't - slower pacing of the game allows positioning so you can avoid being hit quite easily.
But on top of being faster, dark souls 3 brought back heavily punishing input buffer while speeding the game up (it was kept in elden ring and then turned with absolute shitfest in sote dlc). It's not that ds2 has no input buffer, but to much lower extent, and I tested it excessively. Even elden ring has worse controls than ds2 which is just laughable.
ds2 feels like you’re playing a video game with a controller made of pudding
100% on this critique! This game is the Amber Heard of relationships. It starts off okay; but then you get to Pontiff and it's downhill from there. Bullshit bosses that heavily rely on RNG? And not to mention the DLC. My God, what a misery fest!
For me the one thing in DS3 that absolutely pisses me off is the s do not activate on input like the other 2 games and Bloodborne do. It's DURING. THE ANIMATION. I can't count how many times the game has screwed me over due to that ONE minor yet crucial change for a basic function. It plays with my muscle memory everytime I replay DS3 and it's extremely annoying.
Also why is it that the enemies have resistance to nearly everything that makes poison and fire builds completely useless?
Other than story orientation concluding the series, world building, and ease of access, I really don't know what they were going for with DS3
DS3 was the first Souls game I ever got into so I kind of had a reverse experience. Going to 2 or 1 made me feel like the games barely moved
Started in 1, played 2 but quit because it was that badly designed to me. Played sekiro and loved it. And I played DS3 and loved it. When I did go back to eventually play DS2 I just bad a terrible time even just doing madnatory stuff while I explored everywhere in every other game. DS2 is the marmite here, I think this guys tastebuds just got acclimated to marmite and thats all he enjoys. I mean to say DS3 bosses are bad put of every argument kinda killed any hope I had this was a good review.
@@celiafrostborn Gael is still my favorite boss in the series. The boss fights are peak, for me. The high speed makes it more enjoyable for me. If the boss is fast, I need to be fast. Learn the dance or perish
After playing through dark souls, one blood-borne and Elden Ring, I have definitely come to appreciate dark soul threes bosses even more. They have by far the best and most consistent bosses of any of the from software games other than maybe Sekiro. The bosses in dark souls one weren’t very good outside of the DLC dark souls two bosses weren’t good at all and bloodborne bosses are pretty mid outside of the DLC.
Thought i was the only one. Dark souls 1 was a masterpiece and not just because of nostalgia ive played that game for hundreds of hours. DS2. Just as good as DS1 if not slightly less as good. Ds3 could not be less bored.
idk if it's a troll video but it made me laugh bc Miyazaki himself said that even elden ring isn't his perfected formula of the souls genre or game yet but is close ever game he himself makes
I am about to finish it, I left it unfinished business.
I did Nameless King and Prince. I played each like 20-50 times. Nameless King especially with the second transformantion, damn it,. I ended up beating it with bow, because I saw sometimes he just walks at you and not attack but sometimes you still have to dodge things. I kept away from him.
But the point is. I don't remember in DS1 or 2, in my first playthrough, to ever have played any boss like 20-50 times and not feeling like I figured out what's the proper way to dodge and attack, what are the window of opportunity, how to properly master it. I feel burned out and like I learned nothing. In DS1/2 if I played a boss multiple times, it didn't took me more than 10, and sometimes some easy bosses would be beaten in 1st try, sometimes 2-3-5 times, and during those times I would start understanding the patterns and realizing how to properly play. Then I would feel confident when I got it.
In DS3 I still don't get it. I end up almost by accident to finally beat a boss and I feel like I learned nothing, everything is fast, frantic and chaotic, I never know when it's the right time to attack or heal up.
The Pontiff and The Dancer are etched into my mind as being some of the least fun bosses in this series, and the fake-out shit that they do to "HAHA, PYSCH!" you is so fucking irritating.
We totally discussed this before, but DS3 definitely feels like Miyazaki trying to fulfill a contract that he had Bandai Namco. While I've always been kinda meh on the lack of experimentation in the series post-Dark Souls 1, each subsequent game does well to refine the previous games edges to make for a concise piece (and in DS2's case, outshines even DS1 in my opinion), or take things in a slightly similar-but-different direction like with Bloodborne. DS3 feels like Miyazaki going like "Ah fuck, I have to do another one!? Fine."
Anyways, good video my dude. You suffered so I didn't have to... again.
That's literally what happened though. One of the major themes of ds3 is letting go and letting things finally die. Ds3 is basically From saying "this game shouldn't exist but here it is". I personally did like it a lot, but it's clear they did not want to make it, going so far as to have it be the main theme of the game lol.
You had some good points and some really bad ones. Seems like you haven't adjusted to the game's rhythms when I watched you fight soul of cinder at the end. You were impatient with your rolls, rolling inwards a lot and instinctively, which DS3 bosses are designed to punish you for. You want to be in the boss's face while rolling instinctively and in the flow of attacks. I can't tell if you recognize that your style of play from just this fight alone is telling you that you are playing the game wrong. This game should NOT be played like bloodborne, so the fact that you complain about boss design in DS3 and also the game's pace of play shows that you failed to try new strategies in your playthroughs
DS3 has a rhythm alright. Unfortunately that rhythm is trash.
I HATE using the term "skill issue" to justify saying someone criticisms are invalid. but holy shit, skill issue
Nah dude I'm just built different
@Sputnik34 built poorly maybe 😂
Roll spammer
Nope. You Just failed
Do you really cannot understand the terrible problems of ds3? It's really a skill issue then....
4:40 that’s what makes the world feel dangerous.
If ds3 is fast, how’d you like er?
i really like Elden Ring tbh. it being an open world game is a bit of a detriment to it though tbh because i burn myself out on them before i can finish them. THAT BEING SAID, the combat of ER is significantly improved over DS3 and gives so much more control to me than DS3 does. it does what Bloodborne did by giving much better systems to make the combat so much more enjoyable
I came from your Lies of P video. You make some good points, but also some which are borderline mentally challenged. I want to say, I love DS2 just like you, it's my most played Souls game, but the way you compare it to DS3 is just so off. For example:
- Complaining about ganks and the difficulty of dealing with them is DS3; In reality, the game is super light on ganks, the enemies have lower aggro range, you can continuously roll out of literally anything. If you wanted to, you could ignore all enemies and run through every area straight to the boss while barely getting hit - you can't really do that in DS2, you'd get chased all the way to the fog gate by the 100 enemies you've aggroed and get stunlocked when you try to enter the fog gate (assuming you'd be able to roll past the 1st couple of ganks, which is already a bit doubtful in areas like Iron Keep.
I like DS2 the way it is, but half of its encounters are just ganks. It's honestly really jarring how you say that others are in denial on this - you are free to say stuff like this, but judging by the intro to your Lies of P video, you don't seem to like it when people call you out on your wild takes. If you keep making videos in this negative and provocative style, saying the wildest shit, negative reactions are all you can expect. I have watched a few criticisms of DS games I disagreed with, but you really make yours very hard to enjoy (I would expect your reaction here to be "don't watch then xd", but I have already watched in hopes it would be enjoyable, so I'm commenting anyways). But I digress.
- Comparing having to level Endurance to having to level Adaptability - Have you really played DS2? The most optimal way to play the early game is to just pump endurance and rely on a strong weapon + resins for damage. Then you also had to get adaptability on top of that, which is more unintuitive than anything stat related in any other Souls game. Ideally, you'd do all of this with a rapier and spam r1.
- There is indeed a lot of dodging on DS3 bosses. There's also a lot of dodging on DS2 bosses. What's the actual difference, though? There's a bit more strafing in DS2 and the dodge direction is more important, but with 90% of DS2 bosses, you roll their combo, then attack 1 or 2 times and sometimes you run out of the way of an AoE - same as DS3, same as DS1. DS3 bosses are quicker, but the player is also quicker to compensate. There are short combos and long recoveries that you can recognize and punish, and long combos where you have to be defensive for a bit. But that's all just increased difficulty compared to the slow, maximum 3 hit combos with obvious tells of DS1 and DS2; It only becomes the panic roll spamming you describe it as when you can't keep up with the pace.
And even in DS3, you're not limited to just rolling - Pontiff is super easy with a shield + you can parry him, you can simply run away from Dancer's spinning thing, you can still get under the legs of large bosses, you can position to catch out bosses who move away from you like Midir, you can backstab Friede and run under her blackflame jump, you can strafe Gael's ranged attacks, you can back off and bait out easily punishable charge attacks. There's a bunch of depth in the boss combat in DS3, it's just a bit more difficult to learn.
While writing this, I have also quickly checked out your opinion on Elden Ring - you called ER's combat a bit slower and making you dodge less compared to DS3. This makes it a bit too easy to discard your opinion on this, considering how many bosses in that game just endlessly chain attacks and make you constantly dodge with few safe windows (Maliketh, Morgott, etc.), and have their swings delayed like crazy. I still like the ER boss combat, but it's DS3 on steroids with no extra speed to compensate. Very hard to take you seriously if you complain about things in DS3, but then don't mind the same things, only cranked up, in Elden Ring.
- Overall all your opinions on DS3 bosses that you present have really weird or just purely emotional reasoning:
"No gimmick bosses in DS3 :(" (There are just as many gimmick bosses in DS3 as there are in DS1 and DS2. WTF are those examples of gimmick bosses, anyways? If DS1 Gargoyles are a gimmick fight, is Demon Prince not a gimmick fight also? Champion's gravetender? Friede is a part gank fight with a fake out, is that not gimmicky? You're just twisting definitions here to make sure that DS3 doesn't have the gimmick fights you like.)
"Attacks have delays / fakeouts, it's so tiring" (while talking about a game where you gradually learn the movesets of bosses to beat them - what exactly is bad about bosses becoming a bit more complex to learn? DS3 is also the most forgiving of the 3 when it comes to avoiding your early roll getting caught)
"Multiple phases just to increase difficulty" (If they wanted to increase difficulty with no extra effort, they would have pumped the numbers. Instead they gave us some of the best bosses in the series. The average quality of bosses in DS3 is also unmatched if looked at from any sort of objective standpoint. I know it's a subjective video, but when you provide no good reasoning for your opinions, then 1) the video is a bit worthless 2) you're opening yourself up to criticism.)
I do agree quite a bit about the level and world design. Despite the gankiness and kinda unfinished look, I enjoyed the DS2 world and levels much more. DS1 levels are perfect in the 1st half, average to shitty in the second half, but overall still a much better feel than DS3. DS3 levels are just not very "soulful".
But in summary there are lots of video game video essayists on TH-cam and you really stand out in a uniquely negative way. I will not bother you again, but I really do think the world would be a marginally better place if you stopped posting videos.
I get what you're saying. It's definitely not my best video but I will not stop making content just cause I made one less than great video. Sorry lol
@@Sputnik34look i like your shit but , we aint asking you to stop , its your opinion and you have the right to state it however , your points are honestly good enough but you are very condescending and contradictory and i disagree with you on everything in this vid but please do keep making videos
@@AbyssHeavyConsortOfMalenia my videos are condescending or I AM? I tend to push buttons and my Lies of P video was literally intended to annoy fromsoft fans lol. Buty videos otherwise are just me expressing myself. I can and will definitely tone back the tone
Watched this video for the first time, and thank you for putting into words everything that I too feel is wrong with the game.
Glad to do it :')
Hard disagree on second phases being lazy. Ds3’s boss second phases always bring something interesting into play. The only bosses I can think of that are a little lazy when it comes to extra phases are Abyss Watcher’s second phase and Friede’s third phase. Also I wonder what your opinion on Elden Ring is after hearing about your problem with boss fakeouts lol.
Its lazy because they trot it out for every single boss. And having phases isnt the issue its how often they have you remove the entire health pool only to have you watch an animation or cutscene and start a new fight. Orphan of Kos had two distinct phases without needing a new healthbar and that was the very final boss in the entire game and dlc
@@GinkgoPeteEntirely a visual issue honestly. Even if every boss with a second phase just had one health bar with the phase switch coming at 50% it would be worse actually because it would look like you’re doing alot less damage than you actually are, making the boss seem more grueling. And also, it’s lazy because they do it alot? That’s what I’m getting out of that at least, which both of these clarifications make the take even more ridiculous.
As a big fan of DS 1, DS 3 and Elden Ring, with over 100 hours on each, and reaching 500hrs on Elden Ring, I honestly believe the drastic change of pace from DS 1 and 3 is not a bad thing, but rather for different tastes. It could definitely be argued that DS 3 feels like a different games series to DS 1 due to the change in speed of combat, which you could argue should've been used for a new world, rather than a sequel, but as an enjoyer of high pace combat, I honestly never found an issue or fundamental flaw in the combat of DS 3, after 3 seperate playthroughs, 1 as a sword'n'board knight, another as a heavily armoured full strength build and the last as a relatively light pyromancer. Can't say I remember stamina being a particular issue, in any souls game (Never played DS 2), including DS 3. I can see the potential issue of the amount of hordes you fight in DS 3, but beyond it feeling difficult, it felt intendedly so and paradoxically the fast pace made fighting such hordes feel easier
Glad someone said it. I still haven't beat DS3 because I don't like it. It's not like I'm horrible at souls games either. I've done a lot of the typical challenge runs for DS1 and DS2. I just never cared much for the frantic pace of the Bloodbourne combat, and DS3 leans into that much more than I like. I'm more into the slow methodical combat of the earlier games.
No build variety, speed of Bloodborne while you are DS bound. NPCs suck all around. Thought bloodborne sucked because there is no builds just melee. But DS3 is a slap in the face of the fans. I think it is the least fun game in the series.
As for the combat, you can use slow cbat in Dark Souls 3 as long as you have a strength build.
This one is my favourite tbh, but people really need to stop saying "dark souls 3 is the best bc it returned to ds1's formula after the disaster that was ds2"
While I disagree with most of your criticisms, i can understand you frustration.
despite me also hating on DS3, i will disagree on your opinion with the bosses.
while its true that some do feel like shit to play, there's a handful of them that felt perfect in every sense
Nameless King felt like a fair boss with very fun attacks to learn and dodge, with pretty cool hints to DS1 lore
Champion Gundyr while being just the first boss but faster and no transformation, it still felt amazing to fight (and to get my ass handed to him LOL)
and lastly, Slave Knight Gael. imho the best boss fromsoft made (and I argue the bosses in Bloodborne DLC are their peak). Amazing atmosphere, extremely fun to get through, challenging but stays fair through the whole fight, and a banger OST that makes for a perfect boss
there are some other bosses i did enjoy, but they pale in comparison to those 3 imo.
the dodgy nature of them can be boring i suppose, but i think if the boss is genuinely amazing to fight it makes up for it. and made me feel like playing through the game through all the shit it threw at me and tilted me, was worth it for those bosses alone
great video nonetheless!
Thank you! I've beaten DS3 3 times now and I still hold the opinion of the bosses. I really wasn't feeling the dlc either unfortunately :/
@@Sputnik34 yeaaah the DLCs arent great. even if i like gael, it felt like a slog going through it
it was a nightmare getting through the first DLC, and then being stuck for a whole day on sister friede
Dark souls 3 was the first souls game I played and I played the others after it, but none of them really hit the same as 3 did. The combat for me is by far my favorite. and being new to the franchise and figuring out its secrets was really fun.
Most fun way to play is no armor with club only. Beautiful game from start to finish.
I love 3, but it's still my least favorite in the series. It lacks the originality, the creativity, the innovation and sense of discovery that all the other ones have. It recycled the plot and world of Dark Souls 1 and gave us a watered down version of Bloodborne's combat with weightless attacks and janky enemy animations. Still love the game, just my least favorite in the series. At least Dark Souls 2 made a huge effort to have an extremely unique story, world, cast, level design, gameplay innovation and creativity, regardless of what people may think of the overall quality.
I do disagree on a few things here, but I do at least agree with you on Ds2 being my favorite in the series. I prefer Ds3 to Ds1, but I think the primary reason for that is how defense works in the earlier titles. The damage dealt, even with upgraded gear, just feels bad to play with. For example, a 40 dex character with a +15 uchigatana will, on average, hit about 200 damage a swing with no buffs. Whereas starting out in Ds3 with a low upgraded Uchigatana, its not uncommon to see that amount of damage already. Maybe my memory is failing me as this is just my own personal experience, but I just think they balanced the game better in terms of enemy and boss tankiness. And this is why I think I like Ds2 soo much more. Because it has that weighty souls feel, but I feel like I can do good damage, and bosses or enemies don't just become complete sponges provided you're set up properly. Not to say certain enemies or bosses don't become tanks in late NG+ cycles but that it's far more manageable in Ds2 imo.